


■ .:■; .;.._■ 



KVI 



O^ ON THE 

Life and Ch " 



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Class L 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



Austin F. Pike, 

(A SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE), 



DELIVERED IN Mil-. 



SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

February 16 and 22, 18S7. 
, f)fi Cong., ^<L sess., IZZb-i szy 



Prepared in ai curdance wilh joint resolution ol I .".Kress, and by authority of the 
Joint Committee on Printing, 



W. H. MICHAEL, 

CLERK OF PRINTING RECORDS, UNITED STATES SENATE. 



WASH! NGTON: 

GOV IK N M I N I PRI NTI KG OFI ICE. 
l88S. 






JOINT RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR PRINTING EULOGIES DELIVERED 
IN CONGRESS UPON THE LATE AUSTIN F. PIKE. 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives oj the I T rdted 
Slates of . Imerica in Congress assembled, That there be printed of 
the eulogies delivered in Congress upon the late Austin F. Pike, a 
Senator from New Hampshire, twelve thousand copies, of which 
four thousand copies shall be for the use of the Senate and eight 
thousand copies for the use of the House of Representatives. 

That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, dire< ted 
to have printed a portrait of Austin F. Pike, to accompany said 
eulogies, and for the purpose of engraving and printing said por- 
trait the sum of three thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may 
be necessary, is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the 
Treasury not otherwise appropriated. 

Approved, March 3, 1S87. 



AUG 6 1908 
D. or U 



CONTE NTS. 



I'm-.-. 

Biographical sketch ... 3 

The obsequies ... . 6 

Announcement in tin- Senate .. . 10 

Proceedings in the Senate. 

Address of Mr. Blair, of Vv Hampshire 11 

Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont 

Mr. Dolph, pf Oregon .. 26 

Mr. Mandcrson, of Nebraska .. ... 33 

Mr. Jones, of Arkansas _ . ;6 

Mr. George, ol Mi i-.-ippi__ ... ;g 

Mr. Evarts, of New York . 41 

Mr. Palmer, of Michigan . ... 45 

Mr. Cheney, of New Hampshire 49 

Proceedings in the House of Representative r. 

Address of Mr, PTaynes, of Xejv Hampshire _ c.) 

Mr. Long, ol Massachusetts . _ 59 

Mr. Holman, of I ml ana 62 

Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire. . 65 

Mr. Allen, ol Massai husetts 75 

Mr. 1 lingley, "I Maine 80 

Mr. Culcheon, of Michigan. N; 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Senator Pikk was the sou of Uriah and Mary (Page) 
Pike, and was born in Hebron, October 16, 1S19, upon a 
farm at the head of Newfound Lake. He received his rudi- 
mentary education in his native town, under the instruction 
of the late George ( '.. Fogg, working upon the farm in 
vacations, and graduated at Holmes Academy, at Plymouth, 
when Samuel Reed Hale was principal. He went to 
Franklin when twenty-two years of age, studied law with 
Hon. George W. Nesmith, and was admitted to the bar 
July 13, 1S45. He settled in the practice of his profession 
as the partner of Judge Nesmith, and has ever since made 
Franklin his home. 

His law partnership with Judge Nesmith continued until 
1S54, when it was dissolved, and Daniel Barnard became 
associated with Mr. Pikk, the firm being Pike & Barnard. 
This continued down to 1563, when Mr. Barnard retired 
and Isaac N. Blodgett, now one of the justices of the 
supreme court, became his partner, and so continued until 
his appointment to the bench, when Frank N. Parsons, 
who had married one of Mr. Pike's daughters, was taken 
in as his partner. 

Senator Pikk was twice married. By his first wife he- 
had no children. In 1850 he married Caroline White, by 
whom he had three children : Helen, the wife of Frank N. 

3 



4 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

Parsons; Edward E., and Leila. Mr. Pike, at the time of 
his death, was president of the Citizens' National Bank at 
Tilton, and one of the board of trustees of the Franklin 
Library Association. 

He was always active in politics. He was elected rep- 
resentative from Franklin in 1850, 1851, 1852, 1865, and 
1866, being speaker of the house the last two years ; was 
elected to the State senate in 1857 and 1858, and was presi- 
dent of that body in the latter year ; he was a member of 
the Republican National Convention which nominated John 
C. Fremont in 1S56 ; was elected a member of the Forty- 
third Congress in 1873, and defeated for the next Congress. 
While a member of the National House he served on the 
Committee on Elections. On Thursday, August 2, 1883, 
he was elected United States Senator for the term be- 
ginning March 4 of that year, after a long contest, in which 
he had not been a candidate in the ordinary sense. He 
worked untiringly while in the Senate, holding positions 
on committees of importance, and was an able, dignified, 
and courteous Senator. 

THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS DEATH. 

The circumstances of Mr. Pike's death show that he 
himself had no premonition of its near approach. He was 
at his farm, about one mile from Franklin village, October 
8, 18S6, in company with Frank B. Richardson, road- 
master of the Northern Division of the Boston and Lowell 
Railroad, with whom he was looking over a gravel bank 
which the railroad company had recently purchased. It 
was a very warm clay for October, the sun during the mid- 
dle of the dav shining with almost summer fierceness, and 



Biographical Sketch. g 

while walking across the fields to the gravel bank Mr. Pike 
frequently complained of the heat, but said nothing about 
internal pain or trouble. On arriving at the bank Mr. 
PlKE proceeded to point out the boundaries, standing at a 
spot where the gravel had been taken away, leaving a 
sharp descent of 6 or 8 feet. He raised his hand and 
pointed out the boundary in one direction, and as he turned 
to indicate the other he suddenly sank to the earth. Mr. 
Richardson at first supposed that he was merely sitting down 
to rest, but suddenly Mr. Pike fell to the ground and 
rolled down the declivity mentioned. As Mr. Richardson 
sprang after him he lifted his hands as if for assistance, 
his eyes gave an expressive look, as though he realized 
for an instant his situation, and then his arms dropped be- 
side his bod } -, and all was over. Mr. Richardson carried 
his remains to the top of the bank, and then, summoning 
assistance, had them removed to his home. 



THE OBSEQUIES. 



The obsequies of United States Senator Austin F. Pike 
occurred in Franklin, N. H., October 12, 1SS6. There was 
a large attendance, and moi'e distinguished public men were 
assembled than had been seen before for many years on a 
similar occasion in New Hampshire. Business was gener- 
ally suspended during the funeral. A draped flag was sus- 
pended across the main street of the West Village, and the 
entire community united in paying the greatest honors to so 
eminent and highly respected a citizen. A service was held 
at the home of the deceased, on Main street, at half past one 
o'clock, at which Rev. J. H. Bliss read a few sentences from 
the Bible and offered prayer. A procession was then formed, 
which moved slowly to the Congregational Church near by. 

The Concord Union published the following in its special 
report of the obsequies: 

"The beautiful village of Franklin wore a mournful as- 
pect to-day, for her most distinguished citizen lay dead. 
From an early hour this morning people began coming 
from the neighboring towns to show their respect for the 
dead Senator. The streets were lined with people, and 
the capacity of the two hotels was taxed to the utmost. 
Business was wholly suspended, and a Sunday stillness per- 
vaded the community. Senator PiKi-; had been an inhabi- 
tant of Franklin since his boyhood; his active life had been 
6 



The Obsequies. 7 

spent in the village; he was foremost in every public un- 
dertaking, and at his decease it was but natural that those 
to whom he had been known so long should feel that they 
had met with a personal loss. His kindly ways were re- 
counted by the people, and main- were the reminiscences 
called forth by the occasion. It was a sad day for Franklin, 
and will long be remembered. The lovely village on the 
banks of the Merrimack is noted for its distinguished citi- 
zens, but Mr. Pike's death leaves a great void, which will 
probably never be fdled. This certainly seemed to be the 
prevailing sentiment at his funeral. But the loss is not to 
his town alone, but to the State as well, for his superior 
abilities had given him a wjde reputation both in law and 
politics. 

'The regular morning express from Concord carried up 
a large number of prominent people, and this was followed 
at 12.30 by a special train that carried many more. 

"The pall-bearers were Hon. George W. Nesmith, LL. D., 
of Franklin; ex-Governor Cheney, of Manchester; ex-Sec- 
retary Chandler and ex-Senator Rollins, of Concord; Hon. 
Daniel Barnard and Mr. Justice Blodgett (of the supreme 
court), of Franklin; ex-Congressman Hibbard, of Laconia, 
and William T. Cass, of Tilton, the latter representing the 
Citizens' National Bank of that town, of which the dead 
Senator was president. The committee of the United States 
Senate consisted of Senator Edmunds, of Vermont; Senator 
Evarts, of New York; Senator Pugh, of Alabama; Senator 
Jones, of Arkansas; Senator Aldrich, of Rhode Island; Sen- 
ator Sabin, of Minnesota; and Senator Blair, of New I lamp- 
shire, who was accompanied by Sergeant-at-Arms Col. YV. 
P. Canada}', Assistant Doorkeeper J. I. Christie, and Messrs. 



8 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

D. S. Corser and C. B. Reade. Among the many other 
noted men in attendance were Governor Currier and Gen- 
eral Williams, of his staff; Hon. B. A. Kimball, of the 
executive council; ex-Governor Berry, of Bristol; ex- 
Governor Smyth, of Manchester; ex-Senator Patterson, 
of Hanover; Congressmen Haynes and Gallinger; ex- 
Congressman Ray, of Lancaster; ex-Chief Justice Sargent, 
of Concord; Justice Bingham, of the supreme court; Hon. 
Jesse Gaul t, of Hookset; Hon. Daniel Hall, of Dover; Col. 
J. Horace Kent, of Portsmouth; Hon. Cyrus Taylor, of 
Bristol; President Pike, and Ira Chase, clerk of the State 
senate; Hon. Charles F. Stone, of Laconia; Messengers H. 
H. Rand and C. W. Barrett and Clerk W. B. Fellows, of 
the United States Senate; George W. Murray and Prank 
D. Currier, of Canaan; Hon. O. C. Moore and Hon. Charles 
Holuian, of Nashua; Hon. William W. Flanders, of Wil- 
mot; William T. Norris, of Dantmry; Hon. George B. 
Chandler, Hon. David Cross, Hon. Henry M. Putney, and 
Hon. J. W. Fellows, of Manchester; John H. Pearson, Par- 
sons B. Cogswell, Charles R. Corning, Hon. Oliver Pills- 
bun-, Hon. David K. Willard, Hon. S. C. Eastman, Judge 
Dana, and T. L,. Norris, of Concord; John C. Linehan, 
Isaac K. Gage, and W. A. Buxton, of Penacook; and Hon. 
A. W. Sulloway, Hon. Warren F. Daniell, Hon. E. P.. S. 
Sanborn, Walter Aiken, E. G. Leach, O. A. Towne, and 
S. H. Robie, of Franklin. 

"The church was crowded, and main- were unable to gain 
admittance. The remains rested in an elegant casket, with 
a gold plate bearing simply the name of the dead. The body 
was attired in full evening dress, with the arms folded 
across the breast. His face wore a life-like expression, and 



The Obsequies. 9 

it was hard to realize that the Senator was dead. The 
floral gilts were many and beautiful. The citizens of the 
town gave a massive broken column composed of white 
and blush roses and carnations, the top covered with asters. 
The shaft rested on a bank of roses and ferns and was en- 
circled with a wreath of ivy and a white satin band. Rare 
cut flowers, trailing vines, and foliage plants were also 
profusely displayed. 

"The services began witli the singing, by Mrs. R. G. 
Burleigh, Mrs. Warren P. Daniell, George I/. Sanborn, and 
W. L,. Stevens, with Mrs. George P. Gale as organist, of 
the chant, 'I will lift up mine eyes,' followed by the read- 
ing of the Scriptures by Rev. Mr. Bliss. 'The Lord is 
my Shepherd ' was then sung. Rev. Mr. Bliss made an 
appropriate address, in which he gave a brief sketch of the 
deceased, enumerated the many public positions which he 
had so creditably filled, and paid a generous tribute to his 
nobleness of character and private virtues. After prayer 
the quartette sang the hymn ' Integer Vita*,' after which 
an opportunity was given to view the remains. The cor- 
tege then moved to the Franklin Cemetery, where there 
was a brief burial service. The widow and daughters, who 
were not present in the church, went up to the grave as it 
was surrounded by a concourse of people and, after the 
casket was lowered, strewed it with flowers. 

"The funeral was directed by C. CV Paige and Messrs. 
Canaday and Christie." 



ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEATH OF SENATOR PIKE 
IN THE SENATE. 



December 6, 1886. 

Mr. Beair. Mr. President, although it is already a well- 
known fact, I feel that it will touch the Senate with a sense 
of deep grief when, in the discharge of a painful duty, I an- 
nounce the death of Hon. Austin F. Pike, late a member 
of this body from New Hampshire. 

It will be remembered that shortly before the close of 
the last session, worn out by the struggle with what finally 
proved to be a fatal disease, he sought health and strength 
among the hills of his nativity. He thought, and his 
friends thought, that he had quite recovered his health, 
and he and they were looking forward witli hope to the pro- 
longation of his useful life, when, in a moment, in the twink- 
ling of an eye, he was and he was not, fir God took him. 

At an appropriate time I shall ask of the Senate that a 
fitting tribute lie paid to the life, the character, and the pub- 
lic services of our deceased associate and friend. 

As a mark of respect to his memory, I now move that 
the Senate adjourn. 

The President pro tempore. The Senator from New 
Hampshire moves that the Senate do now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to ; and (at 3 o'clock and 30 min- 
utes p. 111. ) tlie Senate adjourned until Tuesday, December 
7, at 12 o'clock m. 
in 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 



February 16, 1887. 

Mr. Blair. I submit a series of resolutions, and ask that 
they be now considered. 

The President pro tempore. The Senator from New 
Hampshire submits for adoption a series of resolutions, 
which will be read. 

The Chief Clerk read the resolutions, as follows : 

Resolved, That the Senate has learned with deep regret of the 
dei ease of Austin F. Pike, late a member of this body from the 
State of New Hampshire. 

Resolved, That the business of the Senate be now suspended that 
appropriate tribute may be paid to the high character and distin- 
guished public services of the deceased Senator. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these 
resolutions to the House of Representatives. 

Resolved, That, as an additional mark of respei t to the memory 
of the deceased, the Senate do now adjourn. 



Address of Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire. 

Mr. President: Once more .the Senate is reminded that 
the great startling fact in life is death. 

I have moved this resolution of respect for the dead and 

of condolence to the living because the nation has lost ,1 

patriot and a statesman ; the community a citizen wise, 

trusted, and efficient ; the family a model in all the domes- 

11 



12 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

tie relations, whose loss is crushing as it is irreparable; and 
the Senate a member faithful, able, and beloved. 

The late Senator Pike was a man of great natural pow- 
ers, the architect of his own fortunes, who from an humble 
though honorable beginning made his way by constant pro- 
gression to the highest and most responsible stations in life. 

Few men did more of hard, honest work than he, both in 
the preparation of his vigorous mind for the chosen arena 
whereon his youthful ambition determined to fight out the 
great combat to come and also in the stern struggle of 
more than forty years which constituted his active, pro- 
fessional, business, and public career. 

Eminent in many things, and with versatile qualifica- 
tions for the service of society, he was pre-eminently a 
great lawyer, and always devoted himself to his profession 
in marked preference to other pursuits. In its active prac- 
tice he found an opportunity for study and discipline which 
largely made up for the deprivation of that more liberal 
and broader preparatory education upon which he entered, 
but the completion of which circumstances denied to him. 

Perhaps the bar of New Hampshire has never been 
surpassed in ability and high professional character. From 
the organization of her government until the present time, 
with less than 10,000 square miles of territory, and even 
now not more than 400,000 people within her jurisdic- 
tion, she has constantly exhibited a wonderful galaxy of 
bright particular stars in that profession which has writ- 
ten almost every line in the legislation of freedom every- 
where, and in this country, at least, has ever been true 
to the cause of the oppressed against arbitrary power. 
Her vSullivans, for three generations the great masters of 



Address of Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire. 13 

forensic disputation, which they elevated by the highest 
forms of logic and eloquence ; Jeremiah Mason, the pro- 
foundest American master of the common law, and by the 
Great Expounder of the Constitution himself admitted to 
be the most formidable antagonist he had ever met ; the two 
Websters, Daniel and his brother Ezekiel, unequaled per- 
haps save by each other, and certainly unsurpassed in the 
profession to which they belonged ; Jeremiah Smith, the 
great chief-justice of our early history, whose name will 
live always in the memory of the profession and no less in 
the affectionate regard of the people of our State; Ichabod 
Bartlett, quick-witted, brilliant, versatile, yet profound ; 
Noyes and Thompson, the tutors of Webster, whose high 
character and attainments were the models in the effort to 
imitate and equal which he necessarily became great. The 
Bells, who by families and generations were pre-eminent 
in every branch of law, in literature, and in statesmanship ; 
and in later times, within my own memory, a plenitude of 
illustrious names of whom the time would fail me to speak, 
whom I saw and heard and revered in my younger years, 
and whose high character and surpassing abilities have 
grown in my estimation as larger experience and wider ob- 
servation of men have forced comparison between them and 
others who, in all parts of the country, on the bench and at 
the bar, have worthily upheld the dignity and administered 
the high trusts of the profession of law. 

It was when a mere boy, toiling on a hard hillside farm, 
vet full of suppressed and dreamy aspirations, on one occa- 
sion when called from my labor to that most picturesque and 
beautiful of American villages, Plymouth, New Hampshire, 
which rests like a crown of peace on the banks of the 



14 Life and Character of .lust in /•'. Pike. 

Pemigewasset, that I timidly entered the old court-house 

and there first saw, among his brethren at the bar, Hon. 
Austin F. Pike, whose decease is the mournful occasion 
of these commemorative ceremonies. 

In those days the courts were schools of instruction. 
Every trial, even if the subject in controversy was trifling 
in character or in value, was fully attended bv the people. 
It was a favorite saying of Chief-Justice Bell that there are 
no small eases. This is true. Every trial is a contest be- 
tween principles which has for its object the discovery of 
truth and the administration of justice. Nothing is the law 
but the right, and a decision which involves but a penny 
or the slightest wrong to the person may become the prece- 
dent which controls millions or upon which may depend 
the liberties and lives of unnumbered citizens in future 
times. 

In the absence of lectures, entertainments, and diversions 
the people thronged to these judicial contests, and there, at 
least far more than at the present day, they learned the laws 
of the land. To my youthful imagination those lawyers and 
judges seemed a higher order of beings, and never since, even 
after I became an humble member of the fraternity, have I 
been able to divest myself of a feeling of deep reverence for 
the bench as a seat of judgment and as the highest earthly 
personification of the work of the great Law-giver and Ad- 
ministrator of justice to the universe, while every member 
of the court who does his duty seems to me to be clothed 
with a direct authority in the discharge of the highest func- 
tions assigned to men. 

Thus, nearly forty years ago, I first saw Mr. Pike engaged 
in the active duties of his profession. He was then a young 



Address of Mr. /Hair, of New Hampshire. 1"> 

man of medium height, of well-knit though rather delicate 
frame for one reared upon a New Hampshire farm, with a 
fine head, an intellectual but resolute expression of coun- 
tenance, and an appearance of steady activity, both of body 
and mind, which made progress continually like the advance 
of time. 

Ten years afterwards I made his acquaintance, and have 
known him well during the life-time of a generation, and 
until my entrance upon public life, with the exception of a 
few years' interruption by the war, in constant observation 
of and frequent association with him in the practice of the 
profession. 

Mr. PlKE was born in' Hebron, Grafton Countv, New 
Hampshire, October 16, 1S19. His father was Uriah Pike 
and his mother was Mary Page. The town is one of those 
places among our mountains which language can not de- 
scribe in their full and everlasting beauty, but which no 
child who is born there can ever forget or cease to love any 
more than he can become indifferent to the mother who 
bore him. 

The parents were hardy, intelligent, upright, and indus- 
trious fanners, with several children, living upon one of 
those hard old farms which seemed to be the natural scene 
of toil, yet so located amid the everlasting beauties of the 
heavens and of the earth, and so tempering the rough strug- 
gle upon their rocky bosoms for existence, that happy is 
tin.- child who is born to tug thereon for nutrition both of 
body and mind. 

Young Austin was a studious, thoughtful boy, who worked 
wearily on with the rest through the years of childhood and 
early youth to assist in the joint effort of the family to 



16 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

obtain a livelihood. Up to the age of fifteen years he had 
no advantages in the way of education in books, save in 
the common district schools of the town. 

Subsequently he attended a year each the academies at 
Plymouth, N. H., and Newbury, Vt. I have heard him 
describe the great difficulty with which, by manual labor 
and by teaching school in the winter, he defrayed his ex- 
penses by his own work. By great effort he prepared him- 
self for college, but when ready to enter the sophomore 
class his health broke down in consequence of the severe 
strain, and his dream of a liberal education vanished away. 
No one, unless he has experienced the same disappoint- 
ment, knows how life is ever after a desolation. Speaking 
of his early struggles for intellectual discipline and advance- 
ment, he said, not long before his death : 

To aid in obtaining the little education 1 got, my parents were 
able to afford me little more than my board and clothes, but I always 
hail their hearty good wishes, their constant and tender encourage- 
ment. 

Parents and children like these have made their State 
and their country illustrious, and while they survive the 
empire of free institutions is secure. 

At the age of twenty-two years he entered the office of 
Hon. George W. Nesniith, of Franklin, N. H., as a student 
of the law, and in that prosperous and influential town he 
dwelt the remainder of his life. 

Judge Nesmith was the early and life-long personal friend 
of Mr. Webster, his most wise, sagacious counselor, beloved 
and trusted by him until his death. An able and learned 
lawyer, a highly cultivated and liberally educated gentle- 
man, he was and is the very model of an honest man. His 



Address of Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire. 17 

love of justice is the strongest element in a character of ex- 
ceptional symmetry and strength. Beloved and trusted as 
no other man lias been in our State for more than two whole 
generations of active life, .Mr. Nesmith still survives to 
mourn for and to eulogize the man who forty-two years ago 
began the study of his profession under the care of so fit a 
master. 

He was quick to observe and to commend the diligence, 
intelligence, and perseverance of the young man who thus 
entered upon active life. In three years Mr. Pike was ad- 
mitted to the bar. He at once exhibited the cpialities of an 
active, studious, diligent, and faithful practitioner, and gave 
evidence of the prominence which he afterwards attained. 
He became a partner with Judge Nesmith, his instructor 
in the law, and afterwards the senior member of a firm witli 
Hon. Daniel Barnard, now attorney-general, and when that 
firm dissolved, with Hon. Isaac N. Blodgett, now of the su- 
preme court of the State. Continuing the active practice of 
his beloved pursuit when health and duty would permit, in 
the latter part of his life he associated with himself his son- 
in-law, Frank N. Parsons, esq., who, when health failed, as- 
sisted him greatly to carry the heavy burdens of professional 
and public life. 

He was wedded to the law. It was impossible for him 
to be divorced from it. He loved it and its practice with 
a love that never faltered and a devotion which never 
wavered. I never knew a more diligent and assiduous 
student and practitioner of the profession. 

He was early active in political life. He represented the 
town of Franklin in the legislature of 1850, 1851, and 1852, 
and again in 1865 and 1S66, during which last two sessions 



IS Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

he was speaker of the house. He was a member of the State 
senate in 1S57 and 185S, and was president of that body the 
latter year. Three years he was chairman of the Republi- 
can State committee, and he was a delegate to the memor- 
able first Republican National Convention which nominated 
General Fremont for the Presidency. He represented the 
Second Congressional district in the Forty-third Congress, 
and in 1883, after one of the most extraordinary struggles 
known in American political life, all the conflicting and 
embittered elements of his party harmonized in his election 
to the Senate of the United States. He took his seat in 
this body December 3 of that year. His term would have 
expired March 3, 1S89. 

Political parties, and the country also, might ofteuer 
than they do feel grateful to that man who, by his admitted 
strength, elevation, and conspicuous fitness of character, 
presents to them a suitable candidate for harmonious and 
successful concentration in times of factional bitterness 
and distraction. 

In private business affairs he was very successful, and he 
held many important positions of personal trust. 

Mr. Pike was twice married. His first wife was Mrs. 
Elizabeth Farley, of Andover, Mass., step-daughter of 
ex-Governor Berry, the war governor of New Hampshire, 
who still survives, rich in the love and honor of his fellow- 
citizens, and especially of the surviving soldiers of the 
State. This lady died in 1848, after only two years of mar- 
ried life. 

In the year 1850 was consecrated his marriage with Miss 
Caroline White, daughter of Thomas R. White, esq., of 
Franklin. Of this union were born three children, now 



Address of Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire. 19 

surviving : Edward E. Pike, who resides in Hebron amid 
the scenes of his father's nativity and to which he retained 
a never-failing attachment; Mrs. Parsons, the wife of his 
law partner; and Miss Leila F. Pike, who resides with her 
mother in the home of their bereavement. 

I will say nothing of the sacred and tender relations of 
his domestic life, except that they were of the most for- 
tunate character. To those who have known the strength 
of mind and the loveliness of the nature of Mrs. Pike during 
their residence in the Capital of the country or during those 
many years of happy wedded life in the State which they 
both honored even as it delighted to honor them, words of 
commendation or even of officious sympathy are as need- 
less as they would be unavailing to her in the impenetrable 
gloom that has fallen upon her life — a gloom which defies all 
earthly consolation and which nothing can illumine save 
the light of love shining from the benignant countenance of 
her covenant God. She knows her refuge and her strength, 
and rests secure within that fortress which is higher than 
us all. 

Mr. Pike's service in the Senate was performed under 
many disadvantages by reason of the brevity of its duration 
and the physical weakness and suffering of which he was 
the victim during almost its entire period. But it is still 
true that the public records bear testimony to a degree of 
fidelitv, industry, and capacity which would have been hon- 
orable to ain- man in good health and in complete command 
of all his powers. 

We know that nowhere else does real nobility count for 
so little as during the early years of membership in this 
body; nowhere else does long service merely count for so 



20 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

much. But during the brief service of Mr. Pike he demon • 
strated that there were few, if any, stronger members of the 
legal profession in the Senate, which certainly contains some 
members unsurpassed in legal ability and that exalted per- 
sonal worth which is the indispensable accompaniment of 
supreme legal power — for conscience is as essential as intel- 
lect to the great lawyer— than was my quiet, unpretentious 
colleague, who gave his rare and full-ripened mind to the 
difficult and vexatious work of the Committee on the Dis- 
trict of Columbia and of the Committee on Claims. 

The high appreciation in which he was held by the Sen- 
ate was demonstrated by his appointment to the chairman- 
ship of the last-named committee, on its reorganization, two 
years after his service began. 

If Mr. Pike could have lived and could have been pos- 
sessed of the full measure of his real powers until the close 
even of a single term, I believe that he would have written 
a couspicuouslv honorable record for himself and for his 
State in the annals of the Senate. 

As it is, we have reason to be proud of the much that he 
did and that it was done so faithfully and so well, under 
circumstances when most men would have done little or 
lothing at all. That which might have been is not undone 
because of anv fault of his, lmt by reason of obstacles beyond 
the force of human endeavor, the supreme decrees of fate. 

In the summer season of 1885 a mountain shower poured 
down its flood, which ran violently through the street in 
front of the premises of Mr. PlKE, in the village of Franklin. 
From the impulse to put his own hand to the work which was 
so natural to him, he hastened to turn the stream into a safer 
channel. The sudden and violent exertion either occasioned 



Address of Mr. B/at'r, of New Hampshire. 21 

a new hurt or developed a latent weakness of the heart, and 
perhaps of surrounding organs, from which he never recov- 
ered. 

That terrible form of disease known as angina pectoris 
(heart agony), of which died the lamented Sumner and many 
other distinguished men, fastened its unrelenting clutch 
upon the issues of life, and for him in this world there 
never more was hope. Everything that mortal skill on the 
part of physicians, or endurance on the part of the patient, 
or anxious, loving assiduity on the part of friends, or de- 
vout reliance upon a benignant Providence could accom- 
plish was done, but without avail. All the while declining, 
oft-times in the throes of most excruciating torture, he 
labored on, smiling at pain and impending death. With 
him duty was the supreme consideration, and during his 
last session here— the first of the Forty-ninth Congress— he 
often seemed to me to be digging his grave with one hand 
while he wrought with patient industry and perfect nerve for 
his fellow-men with the other. He seemed superior to the 
uttermost pangs of disease and to the most terrible afflictions 
of fate. His soul power was certainly wonderful, and 
sometimes it awed me with a sense of the preternatural and 
sublime. 

I never admitted to him any but cheerful anticipations, 
but it was easy to see that the hard sense which erred not 
when he judged the case of others was true in its teaching 

is' 

to himself. He may at times have hoped that he was de- 
ceived, but he never really believed it. He expected to 
die, to die instantly and without the slightest warning; yet 
still he worked and labored on. All must remember how, 
for the last few weeks he was with us in the spring of 1886 



22 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

his face whitened and his step faltered and his voice grew 
weak, and the appeal of unspeakable agony looked forth 
from his deep dark eyes. He was entering the valley of 
the shadow of death. 

I can never forget the time when he came to my desk 
and putting his hand on my shoulder said: "Blair, I'm 
going home. Brother George has kindly agreed to pair 
with me, and we leave to you to say when it shall be done. 
I'm going to the mountains; perhaps it will do me good." 
I bade him good-by and godspeed. He replied to me 
cordially; gently we pressed each other's hands. He passed 
wearily through the door, and I never saw his living form 
again. And so the stricken Senator and his noble wife 
left the city for that peaceful village in the North, hoping 
against hope for respite, not for full restoration. The 
sweet and invigorating influences of his native climate, -the 
new leaf and the song of birds in the springtime, the thrill 
of renewed intercourse with old friends and with familiar 
associations seemed for awhile to really strengthen him, 
and from time to time I heard of his supposed improve- 
ment, until I flattered myself that his life might be spared 
even for years. 

Exacting engagements prevented my visiting him, when 
suddenly, while in a distant State, I read in the telegraphic 
column the news of his instantaneous death. Walkino- in 
the fields with a friend, he raised his arm and, pointing to 
a monument, he said, "The boundary is there." Instantly 
he had passed beyond the boundary of life and was in the 
unmeasured realms of eternitv. 

O, tell us, men, angels, gods, what was it that happened 
then! But he was ready, and sleeps in the hope of a joyful 
resurrection. 



Address of Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire. 23 

Senator Pike died at his home in Franklin, N. H., on 
the 8th day of October, 1886. He was buried with the 
highest honors of the Nation and of the State, amid the 
lamentations of the people among whom he had lived 
and by whom he was loved so well, on the banks of the 
Merrimack, just where the cold and dancing waters of the 
Pemigewasset unite with those of the peaceful Winne- 
pesaukee to form that wonderful stream which, while like 
all things of beauty, is a joy forever, is also, by its per- 
petual and blessed industry in the sen-ice of mankind, an 
appropriate type of his laborious and useful life. 

In conclusion, I may briefly say of our departed friend 
that in the practice of his profession he was able, faithful, 
and successful. He was true to his client and true to the 
court. He had in a high degree the qualifications of a 
great judge, but though often proposed for judicial station 
he remained at the bar from choice. In political life he 
was broad, statesmanlike, and patriotic, free from partisan 
bitterness and the petty planning and plotting for personal 
or part}' advantage which are sometimes developed in the 
practical working of our form of government. He saw 
things in their larger relations and loved even- inch of the 
national soil and every citizen of the United States. 

As a husband and father he was pure and affectionate, a 
very model in domestic life.' In private intercourse few 
men were more pleasant or instructive, and young men in- 
variably found in him a wise and sympathetic adviser and 
friend. He never forgot the intense struggle by which his 
own career had become victory, and he was full of sug- 
gestion, encouragement, and hope for those whose success 
depended on the same hard conditions upon which his own 
had been achieved. 



24 Life and Character of . hist in F. Pike. 

He was a strong and trusted factor in all the affairs of 
the community and of the State, and has gone to his grave 
amid the sorrow and benediction of that people who knew 
him longest and therefore loved him best. 

The nation has need of such men always, and never more 
than now. His death, at the opening of what I believe 
would have been a long and most valuable public service 
had his life and health been spared, is an affliction to the 
whole country, and the Senate may well -pause, even in the 
rapidly waning hours of the session, to pay to his memory 
this tribute of honor and of love. 



Address of Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont. 

Mr. President: There is nothing that I can add to what 
my distinguished friend from Xew Hampshire has said of 
Senator Pike; and to all that he has said of him, from my 
knowledge of that gentleman, I most cordially agree. 

Senator Pike was an illustration, a type, an example of 
that New England rural life which has made Xew England 
society, in respect of its order, its liberty, its observance of 
law, what it is. He was a man of the people. Xo college 
or university education gave him the lead above his fellow- 
men, but the common school and the common rural life of 
a well-ordered and self-respecting farming and rural com- 
munity made him what he was by nature and by education, 
and gave him the just force that he had in all the public 
affairs to which he was called; not the brilliant orator, not 
the ambitious politician, not the amazing and scheming 
statesman looking sometimes for impossibilities and vision- 
ary things, but the sober, well-ordered, straightforward rep- 



Address oj Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont. -I-'t 

resentative of a people of whom he was one, of which he 
was a pure example, and of which he was of course a true 
representative. 

When that same perpetual fountain that made him such 
as he was and what lie was shall have extended to every 
part of the continent that the United States has to do with, 
and every other part of it I may say, there will be of course 
precisely the same result — communities industrious, intelli- 
gent, moral, religious, self-respecting, and respecting even- 
other body and people. So I think that to commemorate 
in this sad, but in one sense glad, way his life and services 
is to pay a tribute to that pure republicanism and that pure 
democracy out of which I think alone can a republic sub- 
sist, of which he gives us such an example. 

When I stood on a mellow afternoon of a brown Octobei 
day at the side of the open grave that was to receive his 
body I could not help thinking of what I am now saving, 
what a type and example he was — merely that, and that is 
ever so much — of that system of social order, and of social 
government, and of social law which appeared in all the 
communities where he was born and where he lived and 
where he died, an example that might be imitated even- 
where as the best possible for human government on the 
earth. The pure democracy of the town meetings that he 
attended, the common school education of every one of the 
boys and girls of the communities in which he and his 
father had lived, the diversification of employment, the 
farmer supporting the manufacturer, the manufacturer 
finding a market for the farmer, every operation of social 
industry, every operation common to all of social education 
and progress, every sect of religious society, every liberty 



20 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

of opinion, even - equal respect for law, existed as a type 
and an example and as a progress in that community. If 
it were so everywhere, the number of laws we should be 
asked to pass would be small indeed. 

So, Mr. President, as I say, I can add nothing to what 
my friend from New Hampshire has stated of this man. A 
true, earnest, faithful, patient, industrious representative of 
the body of a people whom he did represent has left us, and 
so I speak not as regret and sorrow for him, but only as 
regret and sorrow for ourselves that he has gone from us. 

But words, like tears, on such occasions are almost idle. 
We do not know what tears or words mean ; but we have 
faith, as my friend from New Hampshire has said, that there 
is something in the hei'eafter that will open our eyes to 
wider and better possibilities. 



Address of Mr. Dolph, of Oregon. 

Mr. President: It was but a few months since that 
upon the far-off Pacific a people mourned for one thev had 
delighted to honor, and in this chamber we were assembled 
in sadness and sorrow to pay the last tribute of respect to 
the memory of one of our number who had been called to 
go the way of all the earth. Since then once and again 
the great enemy of the human race has sent his unerring 
darts into our midst and stricken down the representative 
of a State. 

Following with startling suddenness the death of him we 
mourn to-day came the announcement of the death of the 
patriot, soldier, and statesman, Logan, and again the land 
was filled with mourning and this chamber was the scene 



Address of Mr. Dolpli, of Oregon. 27 

of the outward demonstration of a grief which could find 
no adequate expression in words. 

Human aid and human solace terminate at the grave, or 
we would have gladly borne him upward upon a nation's 
outstretched hands. We would have accompanied him, 
and with the blessings of millions and the prayers of mill- 
ions commended him to the divine favor. 

The personal relations between Senator Pike and myself 
were of the most pleasant character. Entering the Senate 
at the same time, belonging to the same political partv, 
elected under similar circumstances, of the same profession, 
and both being upon the Committee on Claims, where we 
were frequently thrown together, our acquaintance soon 
ripened into a personal friendship, which was strengthened 
by an additional bond of sympathy when, upon his return to 
the Capital at the opening of the Forty-ninth Congress, I 
learned that his health was so impaired that his death 
might be expected at any moment. 

I shall not attempt to give a biographical sketch of Sen- 
ator Piki-;. That duty has already been ably and well per- 
formed by another. His biography is a repetition of the 
history of a majority of the eminent men of this country. 
It is the oft-told story of persevering industry overcoming 
all obstacles and securing for its possessor professional emi- 
nence and political honors. 

Of his record in this body I can speak, because I had an 
opportunity to know what it was. With his work as a 
member of the Committee on Claims I was especially famil- 
iar. To that committee he proved to be a valuable acqui- 
sition. His legal acquirements, his experience, and his 
industry enabled him soon to master the questions of na- 



28 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

tional and international law which are involved in the con- 
sideration of many of the claims before Congress, and gave 
him great facility in sifting the truth from the ex parte 
and often unsatisfactory testimony submitted in support of 
such claims. 

His reports from that committee bear the evidence of 
painstaking care, indefatigable industry, and ripe legal 
learning. As a member of the Committee on the District 
of Columbia, also, his learning and his experience as a 
lawyer were especially valuable. Many of the important 
measures reported from that committee during the Fortv- 
eighth Congress were reported by him. 

In the Senate he was always earnest, diligent, unobtru- 
sive, independent, tenacious of his own opinion, and de- 
voted to duty. His work was without ostentation, not cal- 
culated for show, but was of practical value to the Senate 
and to the country. Such men. are not always estimated 
at their true worth. Earnest, faithful, practical, honest 
work is cpiite as necessary, not only in this body but every- 
where, and quite as valuable to the nation and the world, 
as genius. 

But, in my judgment, politics was not his true field of 
usefulness. His qualifications, his habits, and his tastes 
better fitted him for another calling, that in which by 
diligent attention and unremitting application he had 
arisen to eminence — the profession of the law. The halls 
of justice, largely removed from the influence of public 
opinion, where the unbiased mind can sift truth from error 
in accordance with just and fixed rules, indifferent to 
results, was the field in which he was best calculated to 
succeed. 



Address of Mr. Dolph, of Oregon. 20 

We all know with what fortitude, notwithstanding the 
critical condition of his health, he assumed the arduous 
duties of the chairmanship of the Committee on Claims at 
the opening of the Forty-ninth Congress. He only left his 
post when, late in .the session, his physicians prescribed 
for him absolute rest. Even then, that his work might be 
completed as far as possible, he sought and obtained the 
consent of the Senate to take up for consideration, before 
his departure, the bills reported by him from the Com- 
mittee on Claims. 

He left this chamber for the quiet of his New Hampshire 
home, no doubt with the consciousness that he left it for- 
ever ; and all of us, I think, who were acquainted with 
the circumstances of his case, believed it more than prob- 
able that he would never return. 

It is to human ambition and the restless activity it pro- 
duces that the world is chiefly indebted for its progress. 

Man is placed upon the earth for action. Toil is decreed 
as the lot of even- son of Adam. Every one has duties to 
perform in the world in securing the comfort and happiness 
of his fellow-men and exalting the destinies of the race; but 
as we approach the close of life, by a wise provision of nature 
there is less of activity and more of contemplation, the soul 
gradually begins to relax its hold upon those things which 
in early years absorbed our attention and called forth our 
energies, from the struggles and contentions of life, and is 
attracted nearer to the Author of its being. 

Such, it appeared to me, was the case with our lamented 
brother when he left the National Capitol last spring. He 
seemed to be aware that the activities of his useful life were 
drawing to a close, and, looking backward without regret 



30 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

and forward without fear, lie calmly set his house in order 
for the expected summons which was to call him from the 
scenes of earth's activities. 

We can not, if we would, draw aside the veil and follow 
him into the sacred precincts of his New Hampshire home, 
and picture the alternate hopes and fears, the constant solici- 
tude, the fearful apprehension of the wife and the daughter, 
the fortitude and serenity of the husband and father, and at 
last the not unlooked-for but sudden coming of the grim 
messenger. 

How impressive the lesson of this hour! As it is with 
our brother, so will it shortly be witli us all. 

Nature on every side with ten thousand voices proclaims 
in unison with the revealed Word that "it is appointed unto 
man once to die. ' ' The decree is universal and irrevocable. 
Neither talent nor station will exempt us; worldly things 
can not aid us; human love can not succor us. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Await alike the inevitable hour. 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Many of tts are in the afternoon of life and are descend- 
ing into the shadows of the evening; a few more years — 
possibly days — of toil, of struggle, and vicissitude, and our 
labors will have been ended and "life's fitful dream" will 
be over. 

The angel of death appears to be constantly hovering over 
the National Capitol; his darts fly swift and thick into the 
ranks of the national representatives. Since the adjourn- 
ment of the Forty-eighth Congress we have been called to 
mourn the death of the Presiding Officer of this body and 
three of our number, and nine times has the fell destroyer 



Address of Mr. Dolph, of Oregon, 31 

entered the House of Representatives and stricken a mem- 
ber from its rolls. We do well to pause to-day in the midst 
of the activities and contentions of life to contemplate death. 
It becomes us to come to such contemplation with subdued 
voices and bated breath, as if in the immediate presence of 
the "insatiable archer." 

I never look upon the face of the dead or sit in the house 
of mourning or stand by the open grave, but the thought 
"what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue," 
comes to me with overwhelming force. How transitory 
how unsatisfactory are the prizes for which men so earn- 
estly strive. Empty are the rewards of ambition. Wealth, 
power, renown, what are they when a man stands face to 
face with death? Baubles, which amuse for a season, as 
children are amused by toys. 

How at that time the tired and unsatisfied spirit turns 
from all these things which excite our passionate ambition, 
and from the unceasing turmoil, the restless strife, the 
desperate struggle for existence, the clashing f interests 
and purposes, the discontent and miseries of the race, to 
seek something more satisfying and more enduring. 

What is life? A bubble floating on that silent, rapid stream ; 
Few, too few, its progress noting, till it bursts and ends the dream. 

If the soul is not immortal, then indeed is death, which 
rends asunder earthly ties, strips us of our earthly posses- 
sions, and sends us naked out of the world as we came into 
it, a great calamity. Rut is the grave the end of man? 
" Shall we go hence and be no more seen ?" No ; we may 
be comforted with the reflection that "Death is nothing 
but the middle point between two lives, between this and 
another. ' ' 



32 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

Faith looks beyond the grave and inspires within us a 
hope of immortality. The word of God proclaims that 
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: they rest 
from their labors, and their works do follow them ;" "For 
we know that if onr earthly house of this tabernacle shall 
fail, we have a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens." 

Our own intuitive consciousness and the almost univer- 
sal belief of mankind are in accord with the Scriptures 
in asserting that the soul of man shall survive the tomb. 
The poet has given expression to this consciousness of 
immortality in the following lines : 

Oh! listen, man ! 
A voice within us speaks that startling word, 
" Man, thou shalt never die!" Celestial voices 
Hymn it into our souls: according harps 
By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars 
Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
The song of our great immortality ; 
Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, 
The tall dark mountains and the deep-toned seas, 
Join in this solemn universal song. 

Oh! listen ye our spirits! drink it in 
From all the air! Tis in the gentle moonlight; 
Tis floating 'midst day's setting glories : Night, 
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step 
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears: 
Night and the dawn, bright day and thoughtful eve, 
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse, 
As one vast mystic instrument, are touched 
By an unseen living hand, and conscious chords 
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee. 

The dying hear it ; and as sounds of earth 
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls 
To mingle in this heavenly harmony ' 



Address of Mr. Manderson, of Nebraska 33 

Address of Mr. Manderson, of Nebraska. 

Mr. President : I can not, without doing violence to 
my sense of the proprieties befitting this solemn occasion, 
sit by the side of this vacant chair without offering my 
slight tribute to the memory of the genial man who was 
my nearest neighbor from the time we entered the Senate 
together, nearly four years ago. 

He left his seat in this body during the busiest days of 
the last session of Congress, and his parting words will 
ever live in my memory. He told me of the severe illness 
at his home prior to his return to his official duties, and of 
his apparently fruitless efforts to regain his health. 

He spoke of the wearing work incident to his position 
as chairman of the Committee on Claims, and how much 
his inabilitv to respond to the numerous demands made 
upon him harassed him. His conscientious devotion to 
duty showed itself in his strongly-expressed regret that he 
must leave the only place where it could be performed in 
pursuit of what he feared was the unattainable. I urged 
him to leave, saying that in the more healthful air of his 
native State he would probably recover and soon be him- 
self. He said he must go home for rest and quiet, but had 
little hope for recovery. Reaching out his hand to grasp 
mine, his final words to me were, ' ' Good-bye, brother. " It 
was with him the usual form of expression. The fraternal 
word came naturally to his kindly lips and was expressive 
of his generous nature. 

During the Forty-eighth Congress I was a member of the 
Claims Committee with Senator PlKE and know with what 
S. Mis. Q4 3 



34 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

painstaking industry he did the work that devolved upon 
him. He handled the law and the facts incident to each 
case referred to him with the skill and analytical power of 
an experienced and thoroughly-trained lawyer, impressing 
his fellows with the assurance that when he came to make 
his report it could be relied upon, and as a rule his conclu- 
sions could be safely followed. 

His was a most kindly nature, leading him to aid the 
claimant whenever it was possible to do so without doing 
violence to his sense of right. 

His opinion once formed, he was tenacious of it ; not 
lacking in that element of conviction that must lie at the 
base of intelligent and conscientious action. 

He had all an honest man's hatred of shams, and the 
only evidence of irritation I have ever seen exhibited by 
him was when some proof of insincerity was apparent. 

I came to have a very great respect for the quiet and 
unobtrusive man, who frecpiently gave, in undertone to 
me, his neighbor, argument and reason for the faith within 
him that would, if spoken aloud, have commanded the 
attention of the "listening Senate." 

Evil could never have been attractive to such a man as 
Senator Pikk. He seemed to feel, with Marcus Aurelius, 
"Whatever one may do or say, it is necessary that I should 
be a good man. ' As the emerald might say, ' Whatever one 
may say or do, I must remain an emerald and retain my 
color.' " 

Those who knew him in the domestic circle and in his 
professional life have spoken of the many evidences show- 
ing him to have been truly good. I will not speak of him 
except as I knew him here, during the brief time we were 



Address of Mr. Manderson, of Nebraska. 35 

thrown so closely together, and my only desire in speaking 
at all comes from my high respect for the qualities that 
remain to me as a fragrant memory. 

Only the actions of the just 

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. 

The final end of all to onr deceased friend came in snch 
form that we might wish onr death to be like his. Much 
of opportunity for preparation for the dread summons, a 
gradual weakening of the physical and mental powers, and 
then ' ' the end all here. ' ' 

Shelley well describes it: 

First our pleasures die — and then 

Our hopes and then our fears— and when 

These are dead, the debt is due, 

Dust claims dust — and we die too. 

But, unlike the author of Queen Mab, who saw nothing 
beyond the grave and to whom death was an eternal sleep, 
our friend believed, with all the strength of an earnest, hon- 
est nature, in the soul's immortality. 

The "pleasing hope, the fond desire," the trusting be- 
lief, helped him through all his life and permitted him to 
look upon death as 

The great world's altar stairs 

That slope through darkness unto God." 



3(i Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

Address of Mr. Jones, of Arkansas. 
Mr. President: Upon occasions like this, 

When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
* * * and sad images 
Of the stern agony and shrouded pall 
And breathless darkness and the narrow home 
Make us to shudder and grow sick at heart — 

All human ambition sinks into insignificance; the rival- 
ries and resentments of active life are forgotten, and our 
thoughts turn to the question of the patriarch: " If a man 
die shall he live again?" 

The one characteristic that distinguishes us from all the 
rest of animate creation is our belief in and our hope of 
immortality. And if, after having implanted within us 

This pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
This longing after immortality, 
This secret dread and inward horror 
Of falling into naught — 

We are indeed to come 

To be a brother to the insensible rock, 

And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain 

Turns with his shovel, and treads upon — 

Then the implanting this aspiration in our hearts and 
minds was a cruel mockery. If, indeed, this is the end, it 
were better that we had been as the ox. 

But, in the language of the great Apostle to Agrippa, 
" Why should it bethought a thing incredible with you 
that God should raise the dead?" In all a«es among those 



Address of Mr. Jones, <•/ Arkansas. 37 

created in God's own image this hope lias been universal. 

Our bat-like inability to see wbat a bright light reveals 
does not prove that it does not'exist. A wider and clearer 
vision will reveal to us that what to us seems "disorder is 
order not understood." Such are the paradoxes of nature 
that in our weakness the brightest light serves but to blind 
us, and darkness may serve to widen onr comprehension 
and reveal glories never dreamed of before. 

Mysterious night, when our first parent knew 
Thee from report Divine, and heard thy name 
Did he not tremble for this lonely frame, 

This glorious canopy of light and blue? 

Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame 
Hesperus with the host of Heaven came. 

And lo! Creation widened in man's view. 

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
Within thy beams. O sun ! or who could find. 

Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed. 

That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind! 

Why do we then shun death with anxious strife ? 
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? 

The ages have given no higher or nobler expression to 
the hope of that hereafter which is hidden from us now by 
life and no expression of a firmer trust in Him who watches 
the sparrow's fall than the triumphant words of the patri- 
arch : 

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the 
latter day upon the earth : 

And though after my skin w-orms destroy this body, yet in my 
flesh shall I see God : 

Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and nut 
another. 



38 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

If, in the great beyond, in that existence which I like to 
think of as "the sweet bye-and-bye, " the eternal I Am 
shall judge us by our actions here, by our dealings with our 
fellow-men, Mr. Pike will have nothing to fear. 

My acquaintance with him began with this Congress. 
While we came from widely separated sections of our com- 
mon country and differed on many questions of govern- 
mental policy, I had been a member of his committee but 
a very short time before his gentle manners, his uniformly 
courteous demeanor, and his constant and delicate attentions 
to the wishes and feelings of others, had attached me warmly 
to him. 

In the discharge of the trying duties of chairman of the 
Committee on Claims I never saw him exhibit the least 
impatience or heard him turn away a claimant except with 
kindness. 

A devotion to duty was a strong characteristic of the man, 
and he remained at his post of duty during the last session 
of the Senate long after the increasing heat admonished him 
that his health required that he should seek the rest and 
invigoratiou which he could find alone in his New Eng- 
land home. 

Fully conscious of his condition, he looked calmly and 
fearlessly forward, and seemed to desire nothing so much as 
to be found in the discharge of his duty when the expected 
summons came. 

Surrounded by the hills he loved so well, near the beau- 
tiful village where his home was, he sleeps his last sleep; 
and I as his friend lay this last tribute upon his grave. 



Address of Mr. George, oj Mississippi. 39 



Address of Mr. George, of Mississippi. 

Mr. President: I have not that facility of speech nor 
that acquaintance with elegant phraseology which will en- 
able me to pay a beautiful or elegant tribute to the memory 
of our lamented friend, Austin F. Pike; but I can pay to 
him — and if he could take note of these proceedings he 
would greatly prefer it — an honest, sincere, and willing 
one. 

Mr. President, I have not had a very long acquaintance 
with the deceased Senator. I can only speak of him as I 
knew him, while we were both members of this body. 

I knew nothing of his early history, and have not learned 
anything of it except what I have heard his colleague in this 
body say to-day in the elegant and forceful address which 
he has just made. I can therefore add nothing to what has 
been said as to the events of his life. 

We were both at the same time members of the Commit- 
tee on Claims. Mr. PlKE first impressed me as a kind- 
hearted, polite, and generous man, who felt kindly towards 
his fellow-men and desired the happiness and comfort of 
those by whom he was surrounded. His gentle manner, his 
kind disposition, soon won my respect and then my confi- 
dence and affection. I never knew a man who on so short 
an acquaintance so completely captivated both my head 
and heart. 

Observing him and his services in this chamber, I will 
say that the discharge of his duties as he performed them 
required a high order of talent, a clear head, and a sound 
judgment. Observing the discharge of his duties as a 



40 Life and Character of Aitstiu F. Pike. 

member of the same committee, I discovered that he was 
an able, a well-trained, and a well-read lawyer. I found 
also that he had a very high capacity for grasping the truth 
from conflicting and contradictory evidence. I found also 
that he was careful and painstaking in preparation and 
investigation, and conscientious in the discharge of his du- 
ties as a member of that committee. I think that after his 
sen-ice for a very short term upon that committee he suc- 
ceeded in winning not only the respect and kind feelings 
of every member of it, but also gained their entire faith 
and confidence in the correctness and integrity of his con- 
clusions. 

Air. Pikk, as I saw him and knew him, could not be 
classed with that very few who are considered by the world 
as the great Senators of this body. He belonged, though, 
to a class of Senators upon whose fidelity to duty, whose 
patience and care in investigating questions coming before 
the committees to which they belong, depend in a very 
large degree the successful legislation of this body. 

I remember to have noticed Air. Pikk's career as a mem- 
ber of this body with a little more than the interest which 
a mere stranger of an opposite political party would be 
supposed to feel for one with whom he is brought in con- 
tact. Mr. Pike came to the Senate from the Northeast, 
from a State bordering on Canada; I came from the South- 
east, from the Gulf; and yet, in the social intercourse and 
the Senatorial and official intercourse which I had with 
him as a member of this body and as a member of the 
committee to which I have alluded, I never felt but that he 
might have come from Mississippi or I from Xew Hamp- 
shire. 



Address of Mr. Evarts, 0/ New York. 41 

I regarded him in his political affiliations as a firm, a 
conscientious, and consistent Republican; but he was singu- 
larly exempt from the bitterness of partisanship and from 
that asperity which grows out of political contests. I felt 
toward him something in this way: that, except upon pure 
party questions, I had as soon consult him and confide in 
his judgment and advice as that of any member of this 

body. 

I have stated my impressions of Mr. Pike. I will not 
moralize upon this occasion or upon the event which we 
are now observing. I will only add that as far as my ob- 
servation extended — and it was long enough and careful 
enough to let me understand him— I regarded him as an 
honest, an able, a diligent, and a patriotic Senator. If I 
were to talk longer I could not say more in his praise 
than I have. I regard his death as a loss to the Senate 
and to the country, and I feel that it was a personal loss 
to mvself. 



Address of Mr. Evarts, of New York. 

Mr. President: The usage of the Senate, by which, 
when death shall have set its seal upon the life of any of 
our associates, we are gathered, as it were, around the new- 
made grave to express with respect and affection the feelings 
and views which we entertain of our departed friends, how- 
ever frequently it may engage our attention, should never 
be permitted, and is never permitted, to become common- 
place or cease to be impressive. It is impossible that an 
association that has been attended with personal regard and 
personal esteem for departed associates can be suffered to 



42 Life and Character of Austin F. Filer. 

end without some proper recall to our minds of what it is 
about him that has endeared him to us, and to us what our 
relation is to that common and solemn fate that has severed 
him from us as it shall sever all of us sooner or later from 
our associates. 

I had not the good fortune to be personally acquainted 
with Mr. Pike until I met him on the floor of the Senate 
on my access to the place which I occupv and have filled 
now for almost two years ; but I had known of him as a 
lawyer and as a citizen of the State of New Hampshire; 
ami as my summer home on the banks of that beautiful 
river that divides Vermont from New Hampshire has made 
me, as it were, a part of that community, it was not as a 
stranger that I met him, or as a stranger that he was so 
good as to meet me. And thus this brief period of less than 
two years of our association in the Senate seemed to start at 
once upon a familiar and recognized footing. 

We New Englanders, from the narrowness of our terri- 
tory, and for the greatness even, as we look at it, of our 
combined States, so small compared with some of the single 
States of the Union, are apt to feel a closer association and 
to pass over the boundaries of the States more readily than 
those who are more completely satisfied in the greatness and 
distinction of their individual States. 

Mr. President, when we say that Mr. Pike was born and 
lived and reared and died in the ordinary condition of New 
England life, with the value of those common possessions 
that we all there enjoy, and that by him they were worthily 
lived up to, we speak of a life that has, from beginning to 
end, found nothing about it that was not in its circum- 
stances and in its traits that which we miirht claim as the 



Address of Mr. Evarts, of New York. 43 

proper outgrowth of the institutions in which we have been 
reared and in which he lived to the end of his life. And 
when I thus speak of these circumstances and conditions of 
the life of our deceased friend and of the lives of the sur- 
vivors that I see about me representing those States of New 
England, I do not speak of it as at all of an inferior condi- 
tion of life. If admitted the brilliancy, if admitted the 
distinction that belong to more conspicuous communities, 
it does not lack any of the essential and substantial quali- 
ties of manhood and of patriotism and all that share in the 
greatness of American institutions and American prosperity 
and American fame, which, after all, find their distinction in 
the individual qualities of the common people of the United 
States. 

Nor, Mr. President, is it an insignificant course of life to 
have begun only with the same start with all one's neigh- 
bors, and they with us enjoying the same advantages, that 
one should come as Mr. Pikk came to do, rise step by step 
through an honorable profession to the possession of the 
confidence of his neighbors, and then to a share in the 
political life of his own State, and finally by the general 
consent and approval of his fellow-citizens to receive this 
crowning distinction of being a member of this Senate. It 
is not by fortune, nor is it by any incongruity that this life 
has thus grown up and thus been graced and honored. 
While it can not come to all, yet it can come to none but 
by qualities of mind, by labors of life, and by the heartfelt 
affection and respect of a community that thus his life is to 
be filled out. 

Nor, Mr. President, is it a rightful view of a life that was 
circumscribed in early years, as that of Mr. Pike was, to 



44 Life and Character of . lustin F. Pike. 

speak of those circumstances as in our American system 
of society a disadvantage — to have missed some of the op- 
portunities of education and to have been required from 
the outset to be frugal and careful and industrious. It is 
from these beginnings and by these trainings that character 
and life are filled out; and it would be easier to say that 
when affluence and all the opportunities which life can fur- 
nish to the rich are provided for the young, career in public 
life, in public service, in public distinction can easier be 
attained. How many are there who fall by the way? How 
often have the harder course of industry in early life and 
the frugal virtues that are thus required been successful 
in reaching the goal, while many have fallen by the way 
under these affluent and brilliant circumstances who might 
have triumphed but for these disadvantages? 

That Mr. Pike was a distinguished lawyer there is no 
doubt; and that he earned from the beginning and enjoyed 
up to his final end complete possession of the confidence of 
the community in that profession there is no doubt. And 
when we add the fact that in this second and, if you please, 
larger arena of political distinction his course was of the 
same manly nature, how can we fail to recognize that he is 
entitled in the fullest sense to all the honor and to all the 
respect that we can pay him ? And when our meed is given 
that here he was without any reproach, and that he was the 
equal of all in the soundness of his judgment, in the purity 
of his conduct, and in the respect and esteem of his asso- 
ciates, we pronounce a credit to a life that needs no greater 
distinction. 



Address of Mr. Palmer, of Michigan. 45 



Address of Mr. Palmer, of Michigan. 

Mr. PRESIDENT: One week ago we met to pay our last 
tribute to a colleague who for main- years had been brought 
out iu bold relief by the calcium light of continuous high 
position. We spoke then not in terms of adulation or 
extravagant eulogy. His services were great, his life was 
pure, his aspirations lofty. 

To-day we meet again to pay deference to friendship, to 
merit, and to death, and lay our last offerings upon the 
tomb'of another who has been called from earth. 

These men represent two types who, each walking well 
the path he trod, met finally here and then went onward 

to a common lot. 

On one were focalized the rays from a million firesides. 
His lot had thrown him amid stirring events, and the ele- 
ments in him had made him the point of the wedge which 
split opposing forces. The other reached the same goal by 
less brilliant but not less meritorious methods. 

It is not given to all, nor is the theater presented, to achieve 
the double distinction of military and forensic success; yet 
m all that composite growth we call society the less brill- 
iant is often as deserving and no less hardly won than the 
other. Each man was a type of different forces which, unit- 
ing, blending, and modifying each other, have harmoniously 
worked for the welfare of their country and mankind. 
General Logan was a tornado modified, regulated, and 
•mided by the civilization of the church, the school-house, 
and the town meeting. Senator Pike, a product of that 



46 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

civilization, was the steady and conservative force born of 
two hundred and fifty years of love of liberty, of frugal 
living, of prevision of and provision for the future. The 
rigid exactions of his conditions and traditions have for 
their result the survival of the fittest in such men as he. 

Born in a State fruitful in great men, he became early 
identified with the beautiful valley of the Merrimac, im- 
mortal in history and resonant with song. 

He sprang from that stock which for two and a half 
centuries had battled with adverse circumstances. He drew 
nourishment from a soil which had been ground out by frost 
and tempest and sunshine from under the feet of the years. 
He came, possibly, of a blood which had consecrated the turf 
of Port Erie and which gave its name to the lone sentinel 
which keeps its watch over the foot-hills of the Rocky 
Mountains. He came of that stock which overwhelmed 
Baum at Bennington and hurried Burgoyne to his final dis- 
comfiture at Saratoga. He came from that stock which 
poured its resistless stream through the gorges of the Alle- 
ghanies, carrying with it a new civilization of which the 
corner-stone was the equal rights of man. 

His lot was cast mid less exciting scenes than his clans- 
men who went forth to new enterprise and new homes; but 
the part assigned to him in the parent hive was just as 
essential and contributed just as much to that great result 
which we call country. In looking over a sketch of his 
life, I find he was painstaking, truth-loving, and never 
tiring in the part assigned him. 

Living in the same town where he commenced his career, 
he passed through the usual gradations of public trust — 
always one step further on, till he reached the highest 



Address of Mr. Palmer, of Michigan. 47 

honor his State could confer, without a stain upon his 
character, and, I believe, without a blemish on his soul. 

To me, Mr. President, such a life as this is the poetry of 
sustained effort. Many men have done brilliant things, like 
Alvarado or Alonzo de Ojeda. In those cases the glamor 
and the romance attach to the act and not to the indi- 
vidual. But when a man for fifty years goes out and in 
before his neighbors in a town where he is known to all, 
and we find him always advancing in places of trust, with 
intermissions, perhaps, but never retrograding in the public 
esteem, we may safely say that this man is an entity, that 
he has integrity of mind and heart, that he is a solid fact, 
that he has filled his place, that the world has been better 
for lib having lived. His life is a compound and a crystal- 
lization of a thousand efforts, a thousand aspirations, a 
thousand defeats, blending and transmuting all things into 
an ultimate and entire success. 

Such a character, I believe, was Senator Pike's. 

We entered the Senate together, and possibly there arose 
between us a community of feeling born of that coinci- 
dence. I often talked with him. I observed his industry, 
his painstaking methods. The conscientious habits of a 
life-time followed him here and attended him in any task 
assigned or assumed. 

As I look back upon our intercourse I believe the night 
which has since overtaken him was then casting its shadow 
across his pathway and that he recognized the portent. 

I handed him one day a metrical version of an old Scan- 
dinavian myth, which told of a city with fair towers and cren- 
elated battlements wherein no one ever died. He read it 
with great interest and found consolation, it seemed to me, 



•48 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

in the fact that endless living did not and could not satisfy 
the cravings of the human heart; that even there 

One and another who had been concealing 

The pain of life's long thrall, 
Forsook their pleasant places and came stealing 

( )utside the city wall ; 
Craving with wish that brooked no more denying, 

So long had it been crossed, 
The blessed possibility of dying. 

The treasure they had lost. 
Daily the stream of rest-seeking mortals 

Swelled to a broader tide, 
Till none were left within the city's portals, " 

And graves grew green outside. 

Addison tells a story of a dweller in Bagdad who, hav- 
ing a vision, saw a bridge projected from a cloud on the 
hillside to a mist on a corresponding acelivitv. Beneath 
flowed a deep, dark, and turbulent stream. The bridge 
rested on an hundred arches; the first seventy were firm 
and intact; the last thirty were crumbling and unsafe. An 
innumerable multitude was continually emerging from the 
cloud and struggled and jostled each other on the bridge. 
In the bridge were numberless traps, and through them 
the wayfarers kept falling, to disappear in the stream be- 
neath. A few kept on till they reached the last thirty 
arches, and with trembling step faltered along amid the 
crumbling stone, only prolonging by their utmost efforts 
the inevitable plunge into the tide beneath. 

This was a picture of human life. 

"Alas!" said the beholder, "how is man given away to 
misery and mortality; tortured in life and swallowed up in 
death." 



Address of Mr. Cheney, of New Hampshire. 49 

The good genius who had attended the dreamer told him 
to turn his eyes down the stream, and there where the cloud 
had lifted he beheld innumerable islands decked "in livine 
green." Their like "the eye of man had not seen, nor the 
heart of man conceived." Moving about in radiant apparel, 
amid fountains and flowers, under translucent foliage which 
transmitted the light but intercepted the heat, he recognized 
many of those whom he had seen upon the bridge. 

The good genius said: "These islands, more in number 
than the sands upon the shore, are the abode of good men 
after death. Is death to be feared that will convey thee to 
so happy an existence? Think not man was made in vain 
who has such an eternity reserved for him." 

It is a pleasant thought to me, Mr. President, and a con- 
solation, when I mourn our colleagues who have joined the 
many whose memories are dear to me, that the)- have gone 
as pioneers to that undiscovered country, and that when we 
fall through the bridge or slip from the broken arches into 
the stream beneath, to reappear, with God's help, on the 
islands of the blessed, we shall not be received as strangers, 
but as longed-for and expected guests. 



Address of Mr. Cheney, of New Hampshire. 

Mr. President: It is with a saddened heart and under 
some embarrassment that I rise in this distinguished pres- 
ence to add a closing word expressive of my regard for the 
late honored Senator from New Hampshire, whose loss from 
this deliberative body we all so deeply deplore. The State 
S. Mis. 94 4 



50 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

which he so ably represented, and the sister States which 
recognized his eminent worth, are sorrowful over the Provi- 
dence that has taken away from us a full-rounded manhood 
so nearly complete in its human attributes as was that of 
the late Hon. Austin F. Pike. The sudden termination 
of an uninterrupted friendship of over thirty-five years is a 
personal loss that I sincerely mourn. 

My colleague and others have made full reference to his 
early life, and I will speak of him only after he had strug- 
gled successfully with his many adversities and entered 
upon the active duties of his profession. The venerable 
Judge Nesmith, the warm friend and peer of the late Daniel 
Webster, was quick to perceive the well-balanced mind of 
his young law student. With a large and lucrative practice 
already established, he clearly saw the importance of secur- 
ing efficient aid in caring for its rapid extension. After 
Mr. Pike's admission to the bar, at the age of twenty-six, 
he became the partner of Judge Nesmith, and so continued 
for a period of years. The law firm of Nesmith & Pike 
was justly regarded as among the most eminent in the 
State, and a young man was deemed fortunate who could 
gain admissi m into this office for legal training and study. 

Through a brother of mine, the late Charles G. Cheney, 
of Peterborough, N. H., a law student in this office, it was 
my privilege to learn of the rare combination of manly 
qualities Mr. Pike possessed, among which were the tender 
care he had for his students, his desire to excite an interest 
in their studies, and his solicitude for their advancement. 
His successful life, his recognition by his fellow-citizens, 
and final election to the United States Senate were the 
rewards of industry, integrity, kindness of heart, and large 
intelligence. 



Address of Mr. Cheney, of New Hampshire. 51 

In political life he never occupied any doubtful position, 
but was always a gallant and conservative leader, unyielding 
only as impelled by the sound reasoning- of a clear brain and 
an honest heart. Before he was elected a member of the 
Forty-third Congress he had respectively filled the offices of 
the speaker of the house of representatives and the president 
of the senate in the Xew Hampshire legislature. Prior to 
his election to the United States Senate he had been offered 
the position of judge of our supreme judicial court, but de- 
clined to accept that honor. 

Rarely does it occur in human existence where the exit 
from the finite to the infinite leaves impress of honors so 
complete and of a life so useful. His earthly record revealed 
the wise purpose of human existence, and the divinity in 
man was made manifest by the void left in the aching hearts 
of weeping friends. The culmination of life's possessions 
had been reached when 

* * * his great Creator drew 

Ilii spirit, as the sun the morning dew. 

So sudden was his death that his life had passed away 
without even the ministering hands of his wife and family. 

We approach tenderly and solemnly into the presence of 
the inanimate forms of our friends, but are comforted with 
the hope that the spirit, although not visible, is yet near. 
We offer our words of sympathy to the hearts most sadly 
bereft, ourselves remembering "how brittle is the thread 
of life," and as we linger by the shore of the "shadowy 
river" a sublime faith in our Heavenly Father lifts the 
dark cloud, and with clearer vision we see the "beckoning 
hand" urging us on to the final reunion in the heavenly 
home . 



52 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

Mr. President, I move the adoption of the resolutions 
introduced by my colleague. 

The President pro tempore. The question is on the 
adoption of the resolutions. 

The resolutions were adopted unanimously; and (at 4 
o'clock and 38 minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned until 
Thursday, February 17, at 12 o'clock m. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



Tuesday, February 22, i88j. 

The SPEAKER. The regular order is demanded, which 
cuts off all requests for unanimous consent. The Clerk 
will read the special order. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That Tuesday, February 22, 1887, at 3 o'clock p. m., 
be assigned for the consideration of resolutions relative to the late 
Austin F. Pike, late a Senator from the State of New Hampshire. 

Mr. Haynes. Mr. Speaker, I call up the resolutions of 
the Senate transmitted to the House in relation to the late- 
Senator Pike. 

The Speaker. The resolutions will be reported. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That the Senate has learned with deep regret of the 
decease of Austin F. Pike, late a member of this body from the 
State of New Hampshire. 

Resolved, That the business of the Senate be now suspended, that 
appropriate tribute may be paid to the high character and distin- 
guished public services of the deceased Senator. 
3 Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these 
resolutions to the House of Representatives. 

Resolved, That, as an additional mark of respect, the Senate do 
now adjourn. 

53 



54 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

Mr. Hayxes. Mr. Speaker, I ask the consideration of 
the resolutions which I send to the desk. 
The resolutions were read, as follows: 

Resolved, That this House has heard with deep sorrow of the 
death of Austin F. Pike, late a Senator from the State of New 
Hampshire. 

Resolved, That the business of the House be suspended, that ap- 
propriate honors may be paid to the memory of the deceased. 

Resolved, That the Clerk of the House be directed to transmit to 
the family of the deceased a copy of these resolutions. 

Resolved, That, as an additional mark of respect to the memory 
of tlie deceased, tin's House do now adjourn. 



Address of Mr. Haynes, of New Hampshire. 

Mr. Speaker: It is peculiarly appropriate that eulogies 
on Austin F. Pikk, late a Senator from New Hampshire, 
should be spoken in this hall, where he once held a seat 
as a member of this body. There are but few here who 
were his associates as members of the House. The}- will 
remember him as one who, while rarely taking part in 
debate and wordy controversy, still left his impress as being 
of superior mental mold, intellectual culture, and strength 
of character. He was not of those who, in the current 
interpretation of the phrase of the day, are ' ' popular idols. ' ' 

There was in his mien and bearing a natural reserve that 
forbade easy familiarity upon short acquaintance. Not 
that he was unapproachable, even to the humblest who 
might seek him, but even with his intimates there was an 
understanding that he was a busy man, with whom the 
time for useless words and social compliments should be 
carefully chosen. With a heart warm as the sunshine to 



Address of Mr. Haynes, o/W~(;r Hampshire. 55 

his friends, ever ready with kindly words and assistance, 
even impulsive in his desire to serve those he liked, still 
he had none of the outward manifestations of a " hale- 
fellow- well-met, " and for this reason was misunderstood 
in his social character and feelings by man}'' of the people 
of his native State. 

No man was honored in a greater degree with the respect 
due to the highest personal integrity; but few held in equal 
estimation for superior talents; but his natural reserve 
tended to the close intimacy only of those of his own choice, 
and the genial side of his character will never be fully 
appreciated except by a comparatively limited circle. 

It was in the Hue of his profession that he achieved his 
greatest distinction. He fairly won title to a position in 
the front rank of the New Hampshire bar, in a State which 
has contributed to the law many of its brightest ornaments. 
I do not feel competent to undertake a close analysis of the 
special traits of mind and character which made him famous 
as a lawyer. 

He was a close student; his industry w T as proverbial; it 
seemed as if he never tired and never rested; and he pos- 
sessed a professional pride which assured the most faithful 
work in any cause in which he might be enlisted, for the 
sake of his own professional reputation as well as for the 
success of his client. I have thought, too, that his early 
and intimate association with Webster and other master 
minds of the last generation may have had much to do with 
training his powers in a direction which led to subsequent 
distinction. 

It was, I think, his average strength rather than brill- 
iancy in any special direction which made him a leading 



56 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

figure in the courts of his State. Others were his superiors 
in glittering rhetoric. Many had greater art to please the 
ear with finely worded phrases and gracefully rounded 
periods. In presenting his case to a jury he never got down 
among its members with that air of deep private confidence 
and personal intimacy which many advocates assume so 
effectively. He pleaded his cause to twelve men as though 
he were talking to twelve thousand; not with rapid utter- 
ance, as when thoughts are crowding for expression, but 
deliberately, sometimes even hesitatingly, but with great 
self-possession, and rarely uniting the salient points of 
his argument with wordy bridges of glittering generalities. 
His arguments were arguments in fact. There was no 
waste timber in them. He was not prone to address him- 
self to the emotional side of human nature. I doubt if 
juries ever wept over efforts of his to depict the woes of 
"my unfortunate client." And yet his rule of careful 
preparation, his studiously acquired knowledge of law and 
of precedent, and the directness of his methods made him 
a foemen worthy of the best steel, whether before the 
untrained petit jury or the bench of learned law judges. 

Senator Pike had none of that milk-and-water weakness 
which would have deemed it an offense to call him a poli- 
tician. From the organization of the Republican party he 
was one of its most devoted adherents and trusted leaders. 
But he had little of the faculty of finesse or taste for man- 
agement of details in political movements. His was not a 
familiar face at party headquarters, even in the most heated 
campaigns. But when, as in the famous counting-out of 
State senators in 1876, weighty questions of constitutional 
law and construction were in issue, he was a tower of 



Address of Mr. Haynes, of Nezv Hampshire. 57 

strength to his party associates. His services as a partisan 
were in the direction of his special training as an advocate 
of principles and measures rather than a planner and di- 
rector of campaigns. He was a cabinet officer rather than 
a general in the party organization. 

He was by no means insensible to or careless of political 
preferment; but he was devoted to his profession, and in its 
practice he found a more congenial sphere than in the race 
for official position. Prior to his election to the United 
States Senate he had been the presiding officer in both 
branches of the New Hampshire legislature, and had repre- 
sented the second district in the Forty-third Congress. To 
the performance of his official duties he brought the in- 
domitable industry characteristic of the man. 

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Claims, I have 
heard it remarked, he gave to every case intrusted to him 
the careful study and critical examination which mark the 
highest legal training and experience. He had no slipshod 
or superficial methods. His close application to his official 
duties in the earlier part of the present Congress was a 
matter of grave concern to his friends. It had then become 
almost certain in their minds that his life hung suspended 
by a thread, and that prudence dictated rest and cessation 
from his arduous labors. 

It is more than probable that he too appreciated his danger, 
notwithstanding that at times he expressed his disbelief in 
the diagnosis made by physicians, the correctness of which 
was soon to be so sadly confirmed. I know, and others 
know, how bravely he looked death in the face, and it was 
not until the first session of the present Congress was well 
advanced that he could be persuaded to leave his duties 



58 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

here and seek in the quiet of his home the rest his condi- 
tion so imperatively demanded. 

But even then he could not wholly abandon his habits of 
industry. The last time I saw him in life was in the city 
of Portsmouth, whither, accompanied by his devoted wife, 
he had come upon professional business; and my heart 
warms toward his memory when I recall his hearty greet- 
ing, his generous interest in my own personal affairs, and 
his impulsive proffers of service and assistance. He was in 
the most perfect apparent health and in buoyant spirits, 
and yet but a few short weeks elapsed ere the tidings came, 
startling but not unexpected, that he had fallen in his tracks 
as he stood, stricken down with a suddenness which per- 
mitted not even a parting word, only a momentary glance, 
and a slight gesture of the hand, which told in that swift 
passing his realization that the great change had come. 

In my pride of section I would point to Austin F. Pike 
as a grand type of the native New Kn- lander. Born in the 
shadows of our rugged granite hills, without special advan- 
tages or opportunities, by his own efforts and force of char- 
acter he rose to fame and distinction. Starting on his career 
in modest circumstances and with modest surroundings, he 
acquired by honest methods and the exercise of thrift and 
industry a handsome competency for his family. His do- 
mestic relations were pleasant, his domestic life beautiful in 
the affection of wife and children. 

The rugged strength of Puritan ancestry was transmitted 
in finer strain in unswerving adherence to his convictions 
of right and duty. But while thus firm, he was broad and 
catholic in his views, and in his nature appeared not a taint 
of narrowness or bigotry. He was honest, he was faithful, 
he was true in every relation. 



Address of Mr. Long, of Massachusetts. 59 

To the coming generations may well be cited as an exam- 
ple for emulation the honored son of New Hampshire, who 
rests in dreamless sleep amid the scenes he loved so well in 
life, by that spot of surpassing natural loveliness where the 
Pemigewasset from the mountains and the Winnepesaukee 
from the lakes join in the meeting of the waters. 



Address of Mr. Long, of Massachusetts. 

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not rise to enlarge upon Senator 
Pikk's political or professional career. That matter is suffi- 
ciently touched by those more familiar with it. In that 
respect it is enough from me that his life was, as has been 
portrayed, one of faithful service and perfect integrity, and 
that honors were never paid to a man of more genuine 
' worth or honest record. 

I rise rather because during his Senatorial residence in 
Washington we lived under the same roof. Almost daily 
I saw him and was in converse with him, and I came to 
know something of the deeper inspirations and treasures 
of his life. To the world at large our lives here are lives 
of official routine. But to ourselves, as the days go by, 
bringing us closer together, familiarizing us with each 
other's faces, with the grasp of each other's hands, and 
with the sound of each other's voices, suddenly it comes 
that we are no longer perfunctory associates, but friends 
and companions. There is in each, indeed, the conven- 
tional discharge of his duty; but beneath that, and far more 
impressive on our consciousness, is the recognition of quali- 
ties that mark not so much the statesman as the man — the 
characteristics of the individual. Out of the unrelieved 



60 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

mass of the representative population which we face when 
we enter here there steadily emerges on us in clearer out- 
line, each clay we stay, traits of individual character, 
personalities of individual men, the opening of the treas- 
ures of the individual human heart, and the expression of 
those affections, tastes, ambitions, devotions, purposes, or 
ideals which make each one of us a distinct individuality, 
yet subtly intimate with every other. And when one goes 
from us, say What you will, recite never so eloquently the 
story of his public achievement, the one sincere chord that 
thrills in the breasts of those who remain is that of the 
regard he had won in their hearts. And the measure of 
that regard is the measure of the response to his memory. 
In this respect I recall Senator Pike with a reverent 
tenderness I can not express. From the time we both 
entered the Forty-eighth Congress I recall meeting, almost 
daily each session, a sweet, grave, benignant face — more 
like the picture of Rufus Choate, a son of the same granite 
State, prolific of great men, than any other that occurs to 
me. I recall a gentle, almost pathetic, smile, significant of 
the sweet and gentle spirit from which it sj^rang — a man 
ripe in years, delicate in health, yet suggestive of some- 
thing of a certain rugged New England plainness, intent 
on duty, going about his work in the simplest and most 
exemplary way, and absolutely free from all entanglements 
of selfish strategic maneuver. He had not been long 
enough in the Senate to take, if ever he would have taken, 
foremost part in its greater questions and debates. But 
there was the most diligent, painstaking, careful, and 
thorough attention to the details of the cumulative work 
which the chairmanship of his laborious committee threw 



Address of Mr. Long, of Massachusetts. 61 

upon him. To this work he brought not only patience 
and assiduity, but a sound judgment, an intelligent com- 
prehension, and the trained mind of a good lawyer and a 
wise man. Of such a character it may seem a little thine 
in the way of eulogy — but to me, who was near him, it is a 
very grateful thing — to recall the simple genuineness of the 
man's nature — even the kind tones of his voice, his en- 
couraging interest in younger men, and the gracious words 
to children which, together with a certain benignity in 
his face, drew them to him. It is a grateful thing to 
remember that, among all who came into companionship 
with him, there was an unspoken but unquestioned recogni- 
tion of him as a true man, an honest man, a good man, 
with all that those fundamental terms mean ; that to all 
who came to him in his official relation, no matter how 
humble the applicant or small the petition, there was a 
genuine response; and that if one may touch the sacred 
altar of the domestic circle, he was its very benediction*! 

By reason of an affection of the heart his life was con- 
tinually trembling in the most sensitive balance. And if 
I dwell on these personal traits, it is because he seemed to 
me to be conscious all this time that the angel of death 
walked at his side, ready at any moment to take his hand 
and lead him away; and that with that consciousness there 
came to him not only the brave spirit of resignation, but 
the braver spirit of doing his duty to the last — to the last 
letting only sunshine radiate from his face, only helpful- 
ness from his hand. When our friends die we sav, God 
rest their souls. But God rested his while he yet lived in 
the very face of death. No soldier ever faced it in the 
sudden and soon-over flash of battle more heroically than 



62 .Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

did he, with a serenity that was proof against its more 
appalling, because constant and silent, close impendence. 

It was the fitness of poetic justice that, not here in Wash- 
ington, but in his own New Hampshire home, death 
claimed him; amid the incomparable beauty and glory of 
the New Hampshire autumn sunshine — in the open air of 
that paradise of mountain and forest and lake and farm and 
field to which every New Hampshire heart is loyal, and on 
the acres won and cultivated by his own hand. There, as 
peacefully as his own blameless life had run, as serenelv as 
his kind face beamed, came the end. The angel, who is 
even tenderer and gentler than her sister Sleep, had indeed 
walked at his side so long that he recognized her as the 
blessed angel of man's succor and peace. She had waited 
till their walk that bright day over the pleasant fields and 
under the blue sky gave the opportunity happiest for her 
and for him. Then she gathered her arms about him. His 
head fell upon her shoulder even as he went. And lo! he 
was at rest in the mansions of his Father's house. 



Address of Mr. Holman, of Indiana. 

Mr. SpE \kkk: The gentlemen who enjoyed an extended 
acquaintance with Senator Pike have spoken in appropriate 
terms of his public services and personal worth. I can only 
speak of Senator Pike from a limited acquaintance; but 
limited as it was it so impressed me with his excellent 
qualities of head and heart that I was deeply grieved at the 
announcement of his death. 



Address of Mr. Holman, of Indiana. 63 

My acquaintance with Senator Pikk was very slight 
during his service in this House in the Forty-third Con- 
gress, but I became better acquainted with him after lie 
came to the Senate and met him daily for main- months. 

Senator Pike did not seem to me to be specially wedded 
to public life or devoted to politics; but he was a gentleman 
of positive convictions, tenacious of his opinions, and well 
informed in the public affairs cf our country and the current 
intelligence of the age. He impressed me as being more a 
lawyer than a politician; more devoted to the science of law 
than to the wider field of statesmanship. I observed that 
he uniformly took a judicial view of public measures, re- 
spected usage and precedent, and was little controlled by 
the demands of expediency. He loved his own section of 
the Union, was proud of his native State and the grand 
historic events associated with its mountains and valleys, 
and yet he took a broad and comprehensive view of the 
duties of a Senator of the United .States. 

But I was especially impressed with the moral qualities 
he displayed. He was a conscientious and "honest man, a 
lover of justice and truth. He was a pleasant, unassuming 
gentleman, as considerate and approachable, I am sure, 
when here as a Senator, as little affected by official dignity, 
as when at home among his old friends in the Granite- 
State. He listened patiently to the stories of disappoint- 
ment and grief so often poured into the ears of Senators 
and Members of this House by the unfortunate, who, hoping 
against hope, urge year after year real or imaginary claims 
against the Government, or struggle to obtain or retain 
places in the great Departments. They touched his sym- 
pathies and often secured his best efforts for relief. He was 



64 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

a kind, considerate, merciful gentleman, who did not forget 
in his exalted station as Senator the right of the poor and 
unfortunate to a hearing and to justice and relief. 

While Senator Pike was not particularly wedded to pub- 
lic life, yet he devoted himself with unusual fidelity to his 
public duties. He had qualities that made him eminently 
respectable as a Senator. The unassuming dignity, the 
love of justice, the high sense of public duty which recog- 
nized the claims of the friendless and unfortunate as equally 
entitled to just consideration as the great demands of the 
powerful, which distinguished Senator Pike, were qualities 
of which any State might well be proud in her Senators; 
and yet, while Senator Pike filled well his place in the 
Senate and performed the duties of that high position with 
fidelity, it seemed to me that in his domestic and social 
relations he found his chief enjoyment. He loved his 
friends, and he was devoted to his excellent wife and affec- 
tionate children. 

It became apparent to his friends during the last session 
of Congress that he was suffering from a fatal disease; that 
his life was ebbing slowly but surely away. I think he 
was fully conscious of the fact, but while his strength per- 
mitted he continued in the cheerful performance of his 
Senatorial duties. As his strength failed he longed for the 
accustomed scenes of his native State and the sight of his 
home and the voices of the friends of his youth, and with 
his devoted wife and daughter he left this capital in the 
midst of his career as Senator, left it never to return. The 
State of New Hampshire has lost a faithful sen-ant, the 
nation a just and upright Senator. A good man is dead. 
Peace to his ashes; a tear to his memory. 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire. 65 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire. 

Mr. Speaker: Death is a necessary and inevitable con- 
dition of life, and before its mandate all classes and condi- 
tions of men must bow; yet, strange as it may seem, no one 
is ever fully prepared for the summons. "Life is sweet," 
and life's duties and cares so engross the mind as to keep it 
unprepared for the great change that sooner or later comes 
to every human soul. Surrounded by loved ones, in the 
enjoyment of home and of the tender associations that have 
grown around him through a life-time of struggle and toil, 
what wonder is it that the man of mature years still wants 
to live to enjoy the fruits of his labors. And yet death 
comes as "the liberator of him whom freedom can not re- 
lease, the physician of him whom medicine can not cure, 
and the comforter of him whom time can not console." 
Or, as Swift expresses it: "It is impossible that anything 
so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should 
ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to man- 
kind." 

And as death is universal, so, too, is sorrow. When our 
own homes are invaded and our own hearts desolated — 
when death comes to us like "the flight of some poor bird 
across some dark cliff, over some narrow valley, for awhile 
sunlight falls on its wings, a moment more and all is dark 
again" — W e are apt to feel that our grief is exceptional 
and our sorrow greater than that of others. But it is 

not so. 

In the beautiful poem, "The Light of Asia," it is told that 
the good Lord Buddha was wandering on the earth, helping 
S. Mis. 94 5 



66 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

the poor and sorrowful as our blessed Lord used to do, when 
he met a fair young mother with her little dead baby in her 
arms. And she could not believe her baby dead, and beggei 1 
the holy man to give her or tell her where she could find 
some remedy to bring the light to his eyes and the color 
to his cheeks. Buddha lifted the cloth tenderly from the 
little face, saw 7 that the baby was indeed dead, and then 
said to the mother: "Go into the town yonder with this 
little cup and fill it with mustard seed, but the seed must 
only come from houses in which no one has died." And 
she went eagerlv away, only to return at sundown with an 
empty cup. All had been willing to give, but all had lost 
some friend. Then Lord Buddha said: "This is the only 
balm I had to give thee. Yesterday thy baby slept dead 
upon thy breast; to-day thou knowest that the whole 
world grieves with thee; perchance the knowledge of 
this universal suffering ma}' make thy sorrow less." 
And, while it did not take away the dull ache, it did cause 
her heart to turn lovingly and helpfully towards the sad 
and suffering, and in soothing their grief her own grew less. 

Lord Buddha's lessou of universal sorrow and universal 
sympathy is what I would bring to the hearts of those who 
mourn the loss of him whose memory we would embalm in 
words of fitting eulogy to-day. 

Austin Franklin Pike was born in Hebron, N. H., 
October 16, 1819. He was one of New Hampshire's ablest 
and best men. From very humble beginnings, and with 
a comparatively limited education, by indomitable energy 
and remarkable industry he worked his way up to the very 
head of his profession, and to membership in the highest 
legislative bodv in the world. 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire. 67 

He was the son of a farmer, and at the age of fifteen had 
only the limited means of knowledge that the district 
school afforded. Then he attended a year each at the 
academies at Plymouth, N. H., and Newbury, Vt., board- 
ing himself because of his scanty means, his limited ex- 
penses being met by the proceeds of teaching during the 
vacation periods. He often spoke of his early struggles 
for an education, saying that his parents could only give 
him his time and clothes, but that he always had their 
hearty good wishes and their kind and loving encourage- 
ment. After leaving school Mr. Pike entered the law 
office of Hon. George W. Nesmith, in the town of Frank- 
lin, where he ever afterward resided. 

Judge Nesmith is a man of remarkable integrity and ac- 
complishments, and under his direction the young student 
made rapid progress in his studies. Franklin is but two 
miles from the place where Daniel Webster was born, and 
but three miles from the farm this noted man owned and 
occupied during a considerable part of his eventful public 
career. Judge Nesmith and Mr. Webster were devoted 
friends, and through a long period of years Mr. Pike came 
in frequent contact with Mr. Webster, for whom he had a 
great admiration, and he enjoyed nothing better than to 
relate incidents in the life of this illustrious statesman. 

At the age of twenty-six Mr. Pike was admitted to the 
bar, and soon gained prominence and distinction in his 
profession, being regarded as a safe counselor and a 
remarkably strong and able advocate. As my colleague 
has said, he was not a brilliant man, but he was diligent and 
conscientious in his work, and always true to his client. 
While not possessed of great oratorical gifts, he had a 



68 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

sturdy strength and force of argument that carried convic- 
tion to those who listened to his well chosen words, and 
he soon became known as one of the most successful 
lawyers of the State, a reputation he held until the day of 
his death. 

Mr. Pike became interested in political affairs in early 
life. In the years 1850, 1851, and 1852 he was elected to 
the State legislature, where he was recognized as a strong 
debater and leading member. In 1857 alM ^S he was a 
member of the State senate, being president of that body 
the latter year. He was again elected to the State legis- 
lature in 1865 and re-elected the next year, serving with 
great ability as speaker both those years. In 1858, 1859, 
and i860 he was chairman of the Republican State com- 
mittee, and in the latter year was a delegate to the Repub- 
lican National Convention at Philadelphia, which put in 
nomination General John C. Fremont, to whom the elec- 
toral vote of New Hampshire was given in that memorable 
contest. Mr. Pike was an earnest and uncompromising 
Republican, but singularly free from partisan bitterness c: 
political prejudice. 

Mr. Pike represented the Second Congressional district of 
New Hampshire in the Forty-third Congress, and although 
suffering from illness much of the time he made a record 
for intelligent and faithful service, and was recognized by 
his colleagues as a man of marked ability and rare legal 
attainments. From the close of that Congress until 1883 
he attended to his professional work, but in that year, after 
a political struggle unparalleled in the history of the State, 
he was elected to the United States Senate for a term that 
will expire March 4, i8Sg. It soon became evident to Mr. 



Address, of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire. GO 

Pike's friends that he was in declining health, and when 
it was known that he had angina pectoris little hope was 
entertained of his recovery. 

In May last he came from the Senate Chamber to the 
House, and, seated at my side, with a pathos and tender- 
ness that will never be forgotten, said that be was going 
to his New Hampshire home, where he hoped, from the 
invigorating air and out-door exercise, to regain renewed 
strength and energy. With a slow and measured step he 
left the House, and on the next day he started for his home, 
never to return to the Senate. The fitting words of eulogy 
that were spoken there one week ago eloquently testify to 
the hold he had gained upon the respect and confidence of 
his Senatorial associates. 

In every position to which Mr. Pike was called he 
acquitted himself with great distinction. His profound 
knowledge of law and habits of industrious research made 
him an exceedingly valuable man for the public service. 
His clear and analytical mind, and conscientious desire to 
act justly toward all, peculiarly qualified him for the chair- 
manship of the Committee on Claims, which he held in the 
Senate, and which he filled with rare fidelity. It has been 
said of him that he brought to the consideration of claims 
before his committee the same degree of earnestness and 
the same careful research that he would have employed 
had it been an important case to be tried before a jury. 

Even when he was suffering extreme pain he would go 
to his committee room and patiently examine claims, sift- 
ing the evidence and applying to each case the strong tests 
of his judicial mind. The amount of work he performed 
during the winter of 1886 was really marvelous, much of 



70 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

which must have been done during hours of physical suffer- 
ing and mental anxiety. 

The domestic life of Mr. Pike was more than ordinarily 
happy. He was twice married, his second wife and three 
children surviving him. His home was a beautiful one, 
where his friends always received a cordial welcome, and 
where many public men shared his hospitality. He was 
happy in his home, devoted to his family, and true to his 
friends. Those who were nearest and dearest to him may 
well sav: 

The dusky strand of death, inwoven here 

Witli dear low's tie, makes love itself more dear. 

On the 8th day of October last Mr. Pike went a short 
distance from his home to show to an intended purchaser 
a piece of laud he owned. On that very day I inquired of 
his son-in-law and business partner the condition of the 
Senator's health, and the reply was: "He is much better, 
and is thinking of trying a case in court soon." At that 
very moment Senator Pike was dead! Reaching the field, 
and raising his hand to point out its limits, he passed the 
boundaries of time and entered the limitless realms of 
another world. His death was instantaneous. In the 
twinkling of an eye life's anxieties and duties were forever 
laid aside, and the gates of eternity opened to receive his 
spirit. 

Low was the message that called him away, 
Swift as the thought of a child in its pin v. 
And in the grandeur of silence he lay, 
Dropped dead ! 

What did he whisper, O poet, to thee? 
Joys of an infinite glory to be, 
Dreams of a soul by the shadowless sea, 
Dropped dead! 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire. 71 

Mr. Speaker, for the twelfth time in the life of this Con- 
gress we have paused from the business of legislation to 
speak words of loving appreciation of our dead associates. 
The Vice-President of the United States, three Senators, 
and eight Representatives have passed away since the begin- 
ning of the Forty-ninth Congress. The list is an unusually 
long one, and serves to call our thoughts vividly to the 
uncertainty of life, the certainty of death, and the great 
question of immortality. They were all good and true 
men, and loving friends and associates have told, in fitting 
words, the story of their fidelity and work. Among them 
all no man possessed a larger measure of unostentatious 
goodness and genuine graciousness than him in whose 
memory our words are spoken to-day. 

In this winter time of the North the grave of Austin F. 
Pike is covered with a thick mantle of snow, but soon the 
balmy days will come and the beautiful spring flowers will 
blossom over it — the anemone and the violet — shedding 
their fragrance on the air. In the hearts of the bereaved 
ones in the home he so recently left is the cold chill of 
poignant grief; but in the reunion in a better world will 
be compensation for the sorrow and the tears that death 
inevitably brings. They have to-day consolation in the 
thought that the life-work of him whom they mourn was 
made up of noble endeavor, honest effort, and conscientious 
fulfillment, and that among his associates in the Senate he 
is remembered as a man of ability, industry, integrity, and 
spotless life. 

New Hampshire will greatly miss him, but his memory 
will be enshrined in the hearts of her people, and his fame 
be added to that of the galaxy of great names that adorn 



72 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

her history, and in the years to come the faithful service he 
rendered his State and the Nation will be regarded as the 
most precious legacy that he could possibly have left behind 
him. 

The form and face of Austin F. Pike we shall see no 
more. His soft and plaintive voice is forever hushed. His 
anxieties and ambitions are alike over, and his busy life is 
exchanged for repose and rest. But it must not be for- 
gotten that 

There is no deatli ; 

The stars go down to shine on a fairer shore, 

And bright in heaven's jeweled crown they shine forever more. 

When life has been truly lived; when we can look upon 
the grave of a dead friend and feel th.it the years he spent 
on earth were not in vain; when we know that to him 
"Life, death, and that vast forever was a grand, sweet 
song," it helps to lift us out of the rut of our own weak- 
ness, and to enable us to say, "So teach us to number our 
days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." And 
happy will it be for us all if when the dread summons comes 
we can meet the great change with the same calmness and 
uncomplaining gentleness that marked the last days of the 
dead Senator, 



Address of Mr. Brown, of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Speaker: I believe there will be a general agree- 
ment by all who speak to-day of the character of Austin 
F. Pike that he was a man who felt profound concern for 
the Republic. There was that anxiety and that purpose 
written in his face which told the world that he was desir- 



Address of Air. Brown, of Pennsylvania. 73 

ous of serving liis constituency for their good and for the 
good of the whole people. My acquaintance with Mr. 
Pike began when I first came to the Congress in 1883, 
and I became at once better acquainted with him than with 
any other New England Senator. I soon felt that I might 
approach him with greater ease and confidence than any 
other Senator with whom I had business relations or 
friendly intercourse. 

The story of Senator Pike is one that has been a thou- 
sand times told iu the history of successful men in this 
country. He was the sou of a farmer, reared in New Eng- 
land and among the hills of New Hampshire, where a 
struggle was then required to make a start in the world. 
His father was poor, and all the children were taught to 
labor. Among those in this frugal family who became 
ambitious to make himself felt in society and in the com- 
munity was young AUSTIN. He early manifested a desire 
to obtain an education, and he was not only willing to be 
sent to school, but he was willing to pay his own way 
while he was in school. That is a good indication in any 
boy. I have yet to note the career of a boy who grew up 
with an earnest desire to improve his mind who did not, if 
he possessed moral worth, in after life make himself felt 
wherever he went. It is the boy who goes grudgingly to 
school, or the boy who is unwilling to sacrifice for what he 
may acquire in school, who is quite likely to fall out by 
the way when he enters upon the real conflict of life. 

Austin F. Pike was blessed with the noble ambition of 
which I have spoken. Like many a farmer's boy, when 
he first entered a court-room he was fascinated, and he 
early resolved to make the law his profession. Having 



74 Life and Cliavaclcr of Austin F. Pike. 

once settled upon a course, he held to his resolution with 
unwavering determination all through life. Whatever he 
did in the way of politics, or in any other field outside of 
his chosen profession, was merely incidental and a sur- 
render of his own to the people's will. The law was his 
calling, his business, to the end of his life, and, as a 
matter of course, he was successful. 

Success- in the law, as in any other vocation, depends 
more upon the vigilance, the energy, and the determina- 
tion of the man than on intellectual endowments. To 
become a good lawyer demands work — hard, continuous 
drudgery, and that is what AUSTIN F. Pike did throughout 
his career. Put I knew him less as a lawyer than as a 
man. It was my good fortune to know him in his home 
life, as we learn of each other here in Washington. That 
knowledge of him left in my mind the impression so aptly 
described by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Lout;], 
and when that gentleman had described the characteristics 
of the dead Senator, as developed among those he met in 
social and familiar intercourse, I felt that he had said 
exactly what I desired myself to say. 

I, too, had observed that kindly expression in his eyes 
and in his whole bearing which invites approach and con- 
fidence. It was this that drew me toward him at once, and 
soon I felt proud that I was permitted, as I believe I was, 
to number myself among his friends. It seemed to me that 
Senator Pike always felt much more concern as to how he 
should live than as to how or when he should die, though 
he must have known and felt that death was very near. 
The anxiety that clouded the brow of his beloved wife in 
this regard never appeared in the face of Austin F. Pike. 



Address of Mr. Allen % of Massachusetts. 75 

He was concerned only in acting well the present hour. 
He was concerned for the fortunes of the Republic, and I 
think I never knew a man who manifested greater anxiety 
that our legislation here should be to the credit of the Con- 
gress and for the weal of the State. 

Whatever may be said of others, we know it is true of 
Senator Pike that he was here with an honest and high 
purpose to do his duty to the constituency he immediately 
represented, and at the same time to enhance the glory 
of the whole country. 

Because he had honorable ambition in his boyhood, be- 
cause out of his earl)- struggles he compelled success, 
because he was true to his calling and faithful to its obli- 
gations, because he served his country with sincere devotion 
to her interests, and because of his kindly nature, gener- 
ous heart, and Christian manhood, I shall hold sacred the 
memory of Austin R Pike. 



Address of Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. 

Air. SPEAKER: I should feel guilty of a lack of respect 
to the memory of an old friend of my father were I to neg- 
lect this opportunity of saying a few words, to express, in 
a poor way, I am sure, the great respect in which Senator 
AUSTIN R Pike was held by all who came in contact with 
him, either in his professional life or in his official capacity. 
So close have always been the relations between our New 
England States, from those stirring days when the founda- 
tions of our great Republic were being laid, when the men 
of those States stood shoulder to shoulder in the great strug- 



76 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

gle for human rights and legal representation, down through 
the varying fortunes of the nation, the boundary lines have 
been purely imaginary, and the most conspicuous men have 
been regarded as New Englanders more than as represent- 
ing any particular State. So it is that Senator Pikk was 
widely known in certain parts of Massachusetts, and wher- 
ever known his conspicuous qualities brought respect and 
esteem. 

The barren soil, the cold fogs and east winds, the short 
and uncertain seasons of the somewhat inhospitable New 
England climate, while they seem at times to nourish a 
somewhat frosty and forbidding exterior, yet they have 
done much to build up a sturdy independence and undying 
love of country, of respect for laws and obedience to author- 
ity; and from nowhere more than those beautiful blue hills 
and rugged mountains of New Hampshire have sprung a 
race of men whose devotion to principle, whose love of jus- 
tice, whose unyielding allegiance to their country, has done 
much to lay strong and deep the foundations upon which 
our most enduring structures of civil libertv have been 
reared. 

Of such a race was Senator Pike. Reared to habits of 
industry, thrift, and prudence; with wonderful activity and 
perseverance; denied most of the aids now deemed essen- 
tial, he boldly carved for himself, and by his own efforts, a 
name and a fame which will long be cherished and respected 
not alone in the State to which he belonged, but by the 
nation as well, to whose welfare his last and ripest years 
were given. 

He brought to his official duties in Washington a wonder- 
fully well-equipped mind, stored with a rich and varied 



Address of Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. 77 

scholarship, disciplined by years of constant active work, 
worn smooth by attrition with the great minds which shine 
in the list of men who have made the bar of New Hamp- 
shire a wonderful record of historic names. Possessing a 
fund of common sense and sound judgment which stood 
him in good stead in dealing with the diversified questions 
which continually challenged his attention, his reports 
and arguments, and his official papers, as they appear from 
time to time, all bear witness of hard work and earnest 
thought, ripe scholarship, and a profound and exhaustive 
knowledge of the subject he had in hand. With all these 
intellectual qualities, he had, in addition, a simple sin- 
cerity of purpose and an honest effort to do just what was 
best for his country. Rounded by no narrow or partisan 
purposes, his conclusions came to command the confidence 
of all. 

In his firm convictions, his devotion to his work, his 
heroic belief in the present greatness and the grand future 
of his country, in his unyielding devotion to the true prin- 
ciples of civil government, his life seems to have been a 
"light to the feet" indeed, in these often-time days of 
groping and feeling about in the uncertain ways of doubt- 
ful legislation. He reminds one of that family of patriots 
of old, who, once having set their faces to the sun, found 
no duty too severe, no hardship too great to bear, which 
should turn them aside in the least degree from the line of 
progress they had marked out, and which was to lead to 
the building up on this continent the free Republic which 
we to-day enjoy. 

To him public office brought great responsibilities and 
duties, vet he never shirked them. The business of national 



78 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

legislation was but the town meeting exemplified in its 
widest application. Such men are rare in this or any land, 
and with his generation are passing away a race of men 
who, by their example of industry and perseverance, their 
rising to success over obstacles apparently insurmountable, 
have served and will continue to serve as an example and 
inspiration to us all. We do well to-day to turn aside from 
the bustle and activity of this life of great earnestness to 
contemplate, as wo pass along, this figure of an honest and 
upright man. Willi his simple manners and intense earn- 
estness he could not fail to impress all with his sincere 
purpose to serve his State and his country to the best of 
his ability. New Hampshire has many names upon her 
historic roll which shine with great brilliancy, but among 
them all none shall be found written in firmer characters 
or shining with a steadier light than the name of her late 
Senator, Austin F. Pike. 

We speak of him as «oue, but where? After all, how 
great are the limitations of human knowledge. We mourn 
the dead when we should rejoice; in our selfishness our 
own loneliness bids us mourn our own loss while we forget 
the gain. 

How little we know. We stand on the bridge at moon- 
light and watch the beautiful glimmer of the water, when 
suddenly from out the shadow skims a boat; we catcli the 
sheen of the light on the oars as they rise and fall; for a 
brief moment the boat moves across the moon-lit path and 
is gone beyond our sight into the shadow on the other side, 
yet if we listen intently we still think we hear the meas- 
ured beat of the oars. The boat has gone from our vision; 
yet we know it is speeding its onward way. We recline 



Address of Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. 



79 



at length on some sun-lit summer clay and watch the fleecy 
clouds chase each other across the blue sky; we see a bird 
fly from the woods on yonder side and with joyous note 
speed its flight over our head. We see it only long enough 
to catch the color of its plumage, to hear its song, and it is 
gone from our sight into the cover beyond, yet we know, 
though we see it not, that it is winging its way to its 
home beyond. So is it with those we love. They are 
with us a day, to bless us with their sunshine and their 
song, and are gone; yet perhaps sometimes we can catch 
the music of celestial notes which remind us of the linger- 
ing harmony of their lives, and we know they have not 
been given us for naught. 

Rather let us think of them not as lost, as ended, but 
just as the early morning star, twinkling and sparkling in 
wonderful brilliancy, charms and delights us; yet, as we 
watch in wonder, the first flush in the east of coming dawn 
causes its brilliancy to fade and fade away until it disap- 
pears from sight in the glorious beauty of the rising sun. 
So it is with these noble characters. They are not gone 
when we lose sight of them, but like the morning star, 
though lost to our sight, yet in their beauty and usefulness 
they are glittering and sparkling to delight and make 
bright the darkness elsewhere. 

When Senator PlKE passed away the nation suffered a 
great loss. But if we profit by the life he lived and the 
example he bequeathed us we shall all be better and 
stronger men. And now his body rests in that beautiful 
town in New Hampshire by the falls of the Pemigewasset, 
whose eternal music shall sing the song of rest and quiet. 
About his tomb arise the mountains he loved so much, and 



80 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

whose cool breezes soothed and comforted him — mute moni- 
tors, in their bold and rugged beauty, to the character he 
represented. And when about those hills the evening sun 
shall cast its wondrous shadows, lingering about them, so 
shall the soft memory of his virtues linger like these 
twilight hues. 

"Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, fur the end of 
that man is peace." 



Address of Mr. Dingley, of Maine. 

Mr. Speaker: I had no personal acquaintance with Mr. 
Pike until he took his seat in the Senate as Senator from 
New Hampshire. From that time, however, circumstances 
brought me much in association with him, and the longer 
I knew him the more highly I esteemed him. 

Senator Pike's position as chairman of the Claims Com- 
mittee of the Senate, before whom I was called upon to 
appear in several cases, gave me an opportunity to appre- 
ciate his practical ability, industry, good common sense, 
and fitness as a legislator. I am sure that if his failing 
health had not compelled him to avoid as far as possible 
the excitement of- parliamentary labors he would have 
taken a very prominent position in the Senate. But even 
with the drawback of ill-health he impressed himself on 
his colleagues in the Senate as a legislator of great merit. 

For the last two years of Senator Pike's service in the 
Senate I lived under the same roof with him in this city, 
and came to know him intimately. His fine social cpualities, 
his charming frankness, his kindness, his elevated princi- 



Address of Mr. Dingley^ of Maine. <S1 

pies, and his solid and substantial character made him 
respected and loved. He was a type of that strong New 
England character which has impressed itself on the nation 
and so largely molded onr institutions. 

If it be true, as I have no doubt it is, that the physical 
features of a country have a large influence in shaping and 
determining the character of its people, then I can under- 
stand how it has happened that New Hampshire has given 
to the nation so many men of the strong, sterling character 
of Senator Pike. On my way to and from Old Dartmouth, 
my alma mater, I have often paused to admire the grandeur 
and beauty of the natural scenery opened to view from a 
point in the town of Franklin, where Mr. Pike resided, and 
in the neighborhood of which was born and reared the 
greatest statesman which this country ever produced — the 
great expounder of the Constitution, Daniel Webster. In 
one of his speeches Webster has eloquently described the 
grandeur of mountain and the beauty of intervale and river; 
but even the matchless rhetoric of that unrivaled master of 
language fails to do justice to the scene. No wonder that 
such physical surroundings have molded men of strong 
character. 

In the last few months of Senator Pike's life — perhaps 
before — he came to realize that the heart disease which was 
preying upon him was soon to bring to an end this mortal ■ 
life. On one occasion he intimated to me that he knew 
he was approaching the end, and that death might come 
suddenly and unannounced. He seemed to live in the con- 
viction that every clay might be his last. But, although 
realizing that he was facing death every hour, he did 
not seem to lose any of his accustomed cheerfulness. 
S. Miss. 94 6 



82 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

The abiding faith which he possessed that this life is only 
the vestibule of a life beyond — that all that is real and 
valuable, the soul, is immortal — seemed to sustain and sup- 
port him day by day. To him the lines of America's 
greatest poet seemed but a faint embodiment of the grand 
truth proclaimed by the Gospel: 

There is no Deat'j! What seems so is transition; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian. 

Whose portal we call Death. 

Some would-be wise men — but oh! how weak — tell us 
that there is only a foolish myth in the faith which looks 
forward to a life beyond this which will never end; only an 
idle dream in the faith taught us from the Book of Books 
on our mother's knee, that our loved ones who have passed 
away are not gone from us forever, but that when our life- 
work is done we may meet them on "the other shore." 
But even if only a "myth" or "dream," I pray that no 
one may take away from me the comfort and solace which 
come from such a faith, unless he can give something better. 
But the Senator whose memory we honor to-day and mill- 
ions of others who "have joined the redeemed" knew in 
whom they trusted; and the faith on which they so confi- 
dently leaned in life, I doubt not, has been realized beyond 
conception. 

And now I add my garland to the wreath which we would 
twine in memory of him in whose honor we have turned 
aside. Honored Senator, faithful public servant useful 
citizen, beloved husband and father, farewell! 



Address of Mr. Cittchcan, of Michigan. 8.3 

Address of Mr. Cutcheon, of Michigan. 

Mr. Speaker: Once more we stand in the presence of 
the great mystery of mysteries. 

Death is the great mystery only because life is the greatest 
mystery of all. 

Life is the one great, substantial thing; death, as we call 
it, is but the shadow. Life is activity, stir, worry, noise. 
Death comes and brings a pause, siircease from activity — 
quiet, silence. 

I have stood in the midst of a New Hampshire manu- 
facturing town, with its mile-long factories, and listened 
to the roar of its vast machinery, the clash-clash of its thou- 
sand looms, and the whirr of its million spindles. The day 
is verging to its close; the black columns of smoke roll up 
from the towering chimneys; the lights flash out from 
hundreds of windows; busy hands ply warp and woof and 
web, and restless feet fly hither and thither amidst the 
constant and unceasing roar. 

Such, I said, is life! 

It is full of rush and roar and clash and hurrying feet and 
flashing lights, and the web of life is rolled up from day to 
day and laid away. 

But after a while there comes a sudden subsidence; the 
roar runs down through a minor cadence, and, with a moan, 
dies out. The clash of the thousand looms and the whirr 
of the million spindles cease; one by one the lights go out 
in the many rooms, and, with a shiver, the great mill stands 
still — dead. 

Such is death. The machinery stops; the pulsation of 
the engine ceases; the lights are out; the windows are dark- 



84 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

ened. It is the resting of the brain, the folding of the 
hands, the stilling of the voice. It is the one, great, uni- 
versal fact — the correlative of life. 

The path of life may wind hither and thither, some- 
times in the quiet of the valleys, "in the green pastures 
and beside the still waters;" sometimes over the storm- 
swept mountain heights, where tempests have beaten and 
frosts have seared and lightnings have scarred; some- 
times by the quiet homestead on the hillside, and some- 
times through camps and courts and palace halls; but 
wherever the path may wind throughout its progress it has 
but one ending — it comes at last to the door of a sepulcher. 

One week ago we paused in our public duties to lay our 
garlands upon the tomb of Logan, the intrepid soldier, the 
impetuous orator, the fearless statesman, the honored Sen- 
ator. To-day we linger for an hour to pay a willing tribute 
to one who was in all things his contrast. As Logan was 
a type of the new, strong, impulsive, ambitious West, so 
Senator Pike was a good, substantia] type of the older, 
staider, and more conservative spirit of the East. Logan 
brought with him the wind of the prairies, the mighty roll 
of the Mississippi, and the stormy voice of our great west- 
ern inland seas. Our friend whom we mourn to-day bore 
about with him the quiet of his native New Hampshire 
valleys, and reflected in his life the placid flow of the 
lovely and romantic Merrimac or the bright unvexed lapse 
of the Pemigewasset. And yet he had in his character the 
solid and inflexible substratum of his own New Hampshire 
hills. 

Austin F. Pike was a type and representative of the 
standard New England boy of the best class. 



Address of Mr. Cutcheon^ of -Michigan. 85 

Born to that most favorable lot for the development of 
manly character which entails neither grinding and pinch- 
ing poverty upon the one hand nor wealth with its ener- 
vating luxuries and exemption from the necessity for effort 
upon the other, he grew up from childhood to know what 
it meant to work for whatever of comfort, competence, or 
education he possessed. 

I never knew Senator Pikf; personally until I met him 
here at the Capitol in December, 1883, but he was one of the 
very first of the Senators with whom I became acquainted. 
The fact that he came from the same county in which I 
was born and in which I spent all my boyhood davs, and 
within whose soil sleep three generations of my ancestors, 
drew me strongly to him, and he greeted me with the 
warmth and heartiness of an old acquaintance. 

His conversation was redolent of names and places and 
associations which were deeply woven into the woof and 
warp of my young life. It woke the slumbering memories 
of the years long gone as lie talked of the hills and valleys 
of old Merrimae County, and the beautiful river of the 
same name, or the headlong Pemigewasset, which turned 
the busy mills of Franklin village, where the Senator 
spent most of his manhood life. Hard by, looking out 
over the green intervales, and shadowed by the great 
brooding trees, was the old Webster farm, where the great 
Daniel, whose fame as lawyer, statesman, and orator still 
stands unequaled in the great American pantheon, grew 
from boyhood to manhood. 

Just here below the village is the little island which has 
been read of by almost every American school-boy of the 
last generation, where the heroic mother, Mrs. Dustiu, slew 



86 Life and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

her savage captors, in the early and troublous days of New 
England. To the westward, a few miles distant, old 
Kearsarge Mountain, a magnificent lift of primeval rock, 
with its bare back of uncovered granite, shoulders up 
against the clouds, the very picture and embodiment of 
"the everlasting hills." 

Away to the north and east rose the towering summits 
of Washington and Adams and La Fayette, the solemn and 
majestic sentries of New Hampshire's northern frontier. 

It was among scenes and associations like these that 
Senator Pike spent all the days of his boyhood and man- 
hood. Here he learned the gospel of work and the divine 
decree, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till 
thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: 
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 

His youth was spent in the usual struggle of the New 
England boy for a living and an education. 

The scanty and not over-fertile soil of New Hampshire, 
ground down from the upturned granite mountains by the 
frosts and snows, the suns and rains, the Titanic forces of 
a million years, does not yield its rewards except to hard 
blows and strenuous effort. 

I believe it was Charles Mackay who said of the Western 
prairie that you can "tickle it with a hoe and it will laugh 
with a harvest." But it is not so with the rocky hills of 
New Hampshire. Sweat and back-ache are necessary fer- 
tilizers on her hill-side farms. 

With steady step, however, he went forward from the 
school to the academy, from the academy to the college, 
thence reluctantly turning before his course was completed 
to the law office, where he came under the tuition of Judge 



Address of Mr. Cukheon, of Michigan. 37 

Nesmith, whose name in my boyhood days was linked 
with that of Webster as intimate friend and neighbor, and 
with whom afterward Senator Pike became associated in 
■ the practice of the law. 

Senator Pike was first of all and above all a lawyer. 
He accepted public office as a duty, because his neighbors 
called him to it, and he felt that in this laud, where the 
people rule and where the citizens must administer the 
affairs of state, every good citizen ought to contribute his 
share to the public weal by. bearing his proportion in the 
labors, cares, and responsibilities of public station. 

He was often called to office because he was trusted. His 
fellow-citizens had confidence in his fidelity, his industry, 
his intelligence, and his unswerving honesty. He first en- 
tered public official life in 1850, as a member of the State 
legislature, and in 1851 and 1852 as speaker of the house. 

I well remember that in 1851, being then a pupil in the 
military institute in my native town of Pembroke, within 
sight of the capitol, I attended the opening of the legisla- 
ture when Senator Pike was first elevated to the office of 
speaker. How little I then dreamed, as I sat a boy in the 
gallery and saw him assume the gavel of the house, that 
after more than thirty years — most eventful years — we 
should meet in this Capitol. Little did I think that in that 
military school in the quiet valley of the Merrimac I was 
unconsciously preparing for the part I was to act in a very 
great drama upon a very wide stage. And yet the very 
next time I ever saw the late Senator was when we met in 
this Capitol, after the lapse of a generation, and after the 
tempestuous waves of a great war had swept over our land. 

A few years later, in 1857 and 1858, Senator Pike served 



88 Life , and Character of Austin F. Pike. 

in the senate of his State, but without intermitting his prac- 
tice of the law. His residence, only a score of miles from 
the capital and on the direct line of railroad communica- 
tion, made it possible for him to serve the State and his ■ 
large clientage at the same time. 

Again, the people of his district claimed his service in 
the National Legislature in the Forty-third Congress, where 
he acquitted himself with credit. 

In the memorable Senatorial contest of 1883, after a long 
and somewhat embittered struggle, the representatives of 
his State turned to him as the solution of their difficulties; 
and so he came to the national capital as United States 
Senator, as he had to the legislature of his State, not be- 
cause he sought office but because he was willing to serve. 

Of his service in the Senate I need not speak. He had 
scarcely completed the half of his term when he was called 
away. He was not conspicuous except for his sterling 
sense and his firmness and fidelity to duty as he under- 
stood it. 

When he returned to the Senate in the Forty-ninth Con- 
gress he was conscious that the dread shadow was creeping 
over his life. He was weary and restless amid the gaieties 
and whirl of this capital, and he longed for sunny hills, the 
quiet nooks, the clear streams, and the green intervales of 
his own Merrimac valley. 

He went back once more to look upon the friendly faces 
of the Sentinel Mountains, and to rest his tired body on the 
breast of the everlasting hills. 

There, in the scenes of his boyhood, in the midst of the 
friends of his manhood years, patiently waiting while the 
shadow turned upon the dial of life, on the 8th of October 



Address of Mr. Cutcheon, of Michigan. 

last, at the age of sixty-seven years, he quietly, painlesslj , 

passed through the shadow and into the brightness of the 

everlasting day. 

Fit time to pass away. 

The woods had put on the glory of the dying year; the 

birds of passage were seeking their Southern homes; the 
apples hung ripe in the orchard or fell over-ripe to the 
ground. The soft, dreamy haze of the evening of the year 
hung upon the distant hills, and all things admonished 
that it was the time of "the sere and yellow leaf." Ik- 
passed with the passing year. Let us pause to-day and pay 
honor to the man of sterling qualities; the man who made 
his own way in the world by honest work; the man who 
commanded the confidence of his fellow-citizens; the man 
who rose by solid merit and enduring worth, step by step, 
to the highest office in the gift of the people of his State; 
the man true to his State, true to his friends, true to right. 
Such a man was Austin F. Pike. 

Mr. HavxES. I now move the adoption of the resolu- 
tions. 

The resolutions were unanimously agreed to; and accord- 
ingly, in pursuance of the last resolution, the House (at 4 
o'clock and 35 minutes p. m.) adjourned. 
S. Mis. 91 7 



